Sibanye scraps supply deal at Sandouville Ni refinery

South African multi-metals mining group Sibanye-Stillwater announced yesterday that it is scrapping a key supply agreement for its Sandouville nickel refinery in France as it repurposes the plant to produce precursor cathode active material (pCAM) for the European battery market. The termination will be completed on or before 31 December, the group said.

Sibanye-Stillwater expects to incur costs of $37mn from the termination, with refining from inventory and sales expected to continue until the first quarter of 2025.

The refinery, acquired from Eramet in 2022, will shift from producing nickel sulphate to producing pCAM after a scoping study yielded positive results. A final decision on pCAM production depends on a feasibility study now in progress. The pivot, called the GalliCam project, aims to use mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) instead of the nickel matte now in use. Sibanye intends to use MHP in a chloride medium, which it said would lead to fewer production steps, lower energy consumption, reduced carbon emissions, and fewer waste products. It filed a patent application for this chloride-MHP process in July.

A small-scale pCAM precipitation pilot is under way at Sandouville, the group said, with testing due to begin from the end of the third quarter.

By Raghav Jain