Nickel Institute President Véronique Steukers recently visited Japan and held discussions with several nickel users in Tokyo. Experts or representatives from the stainless steel, battery, distribution, and refining sectors participated in discussions with President Véronique and the Japanese Nickel Association about the nickel market, regulations, certification, and other related topics.

    In particular, attention was drawn to Indonesia, now the world’s largest producer of nickel, from the perspectives of SDGs, ESG, and oversupply. President Véronique mentioned that the Nickel Institute is encouraging Indonesian HPAL companies, particularly those supplying battery materials, to join the institute.

    Questions were raised by Japanese battery manufacturers regarding the nickel used in batteries. They inquired about which certifications would suffice and, when recycling black mass, whether horizontal recycling into batteries or using it as a nickel source for stainless steel would result in a lower environmental impact, including the consideration of CFP (Carbon Footprint).

    In response, President Véronique stated, “For certification, we are progressing with the Ni Mark certification through third-party organizations, similar to Copper Mark. However, since there are various standards for nickel certification, it’s important to ensure compatibility with existing certifications.” She added that, while there are several certifications such as LME, ICMM, and Ni Mark, it is not practical to obtain all of them, so establishing mutual recognition and compatibility among certifications is key.

    This approach appears to aim at creating a well-organized distribution system for the numerous nickel suppliers in Indonesia and China, which have contributed to the oversupply issue. Although President Véronique did not explicitly state that Ni Mark guarantees green nickel, she emphasized that from the SDGs and ESG perspectives, a green and transparent process is required from upstream to downstream, including labor conditions at the mines and tailings management.

    Regarding the management of tailings, Japanese trading companies pointed out that although audit organizations such as RMI and IRMI have created guidance and included tailings in their audit criteria, the audits for tailings management in Indonesia may not align with the expectations of the manufacturers who actually use nickel.

    President Véronique acknowledged, “Indeed, not all audits are perfect. As you know, deep-sea tailings disposal is banned in Indonesia. Additionally, China’s Huayou has reported that they have reduced tailings disposal by 95% by recovering iron from tailings,” she explained.

    Having long overseen sustainability and regulatory aspects at the Nickel Institute, President Véronique stressed that significant effort is being made towards responsible development and procurement, particularly regarding tailings management. (Related article) Nickel Institute Appoints Véronique as New President and Director of Public Policy and Sustainability

  In terms of black mass recycling, some stainless steel manufacturers are already incorporating high-nickel black mass as a nickel source.

   President Véronique expressed her view that, “The use of black mass beyond a certain grade is problematic, as the non-nickel components cannot be effectively utilized. For the best recovery of cobalt and lithium, battery-to-battery recycling is preferred.” She also noted, however, that whether battery-to-battery or battery-to-stainless steel recycling results in a lower environmental impact needs further examination from various perspectives. She added, “The detailed provisions of the EU Battery Regulation will be finalized by August 2025.”

Additionally, there was a question about the industry’s average CO2 emissions when producing nickel sulfate.

    While large manufacturers calculate the CO2 emissions per ton of nickel sulfate produced (as required by battery manufacturers, for instance) and are aware of their own figures, they do not know the figures for other companies.

    The question posed was whether the Nickel Institute could indicate the industry average for CO2 emissions during nickel sulfate production, which would help highlight each company’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. In response, it was noted that the Nickel Institute has already published data from member companies on this subject.

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President Véronique added that the updated version of this data is expected to be released by the end of this year.

The hour-and-a-half discussion was highly fruitful.

(IRUNIVERSE YUJI TANAMACHI)

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