CDB provides $34 million loan for WP&RKA Laterite Nickel Mine Project (Linked to Project ID#71809)

In July 2008, PT. Wanatiara Persada (WP) and PT. Rimba Kurnia Alam (RKA) — created a joint venture called WP&RKA Company to finance, design, and implement the WP&RKA Laterite Nickel Mine Project. At that time, WP held a 60% ownership stake and RKA held a 40% ownership stake in the WP&RKA Company. Then, in 2016, Jinchuan Group — the ultimate holding company of Jinchuan International, a state-owned Chinese enterprise — acquired WP’s 60% ownership stake and RKA’s 40% ownership stake in order to invest in the WP&RKA Laterite Nickel Mine Project. To facilitate this $57.13 million acquisition was well as the implementation of the $601 million WP&RKA Laterite Nickel Mine Project, China Development Bank (CDB) issued a $34 million foreign exchange loan to Jinchuan Group. The maturity and interest rate of the loan are unknown. The purpose of the project was to build a laterite nickel mine and a 150MW power plant — with three, 50MW power generation units (Unit 1, Unit 2, and Unit 3) — in Kawasi Village, Obi Island, Halmahera Regency South, and North Maluku Province (exact locational coordinates: -1.569915816292653, 127.41508693097965). The project was surveyed by the Nuclear Industry Jinhua Engineering Survey Institute, designed by Jinchuan Nickel Cobalt Research and Design Institute Co., Ltd., supervised by Gansu Jingwei Construction Supervision Consulting Co., Ltd., and implemented by Jinchuan Group Engineering Construction Co., Ltd. Construction started on November 25, 2016. Unit 1 was commissioned in May 2019 and Unit 2 was commissioned in June 2019. Unit 3 was commissioned in September 2019. On October 30, 2019, all production lines went into operation, marking the completion of the project.

Additional details

1. This project is also known as the WP&RKA nickel pit iron (NPI) project and the Indonesia Jinchuan WP & RKA Lateritic-Nickel-Ore Project. The Chinese project title is 印尼金川WP&RKA红土镍矿项目. It has has been identified by China’s National Development and Reform Commission as a key China-Indonesia intergovernmental capacity cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. 2. Project ID#71809 captures an equity investment in this project from Jinchuan Group.

Number of official sources

13

Number of total sources

22