Australia’s Nickel Industries has announced that South Korea’s Sphere Corp. will acquire a 10 per cent stake in the Excelsior Nickel Cobalt (ENC) high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) project at a US$2.4 billion valuation.
Sphere will acquire the stake from Decent Resource, while Nickel Industries will retain its 44 per cent stake in the project.
Sphere is a special alloy supplier to SpaceX and will offtake its 10 per cent share of nickel as cathode material.
It has also entered into an offtake agreement for further volumes above its 10 per cent ownership share.
Nickel Industries Managing Director Justin Werner said: “The fact that Sphere, as one of the key accredited suppliers to SpaceX, has chosen to invest in ENC demonstrates the quality of the ENC cathode, the traceability of the product and our goal for ENC to be a global showpiece as a bottom cost-quartile, sustainable producer of high-quality nickel.
“This transaction marks the first offtake agreement for ENC material into Western markets, and we are particularly pleased that it is into the growing aerospace and aeronautical industries which demands the highest product quality and is forecast to grow by approximately 8 per cent CAGR to 2030.”
Funding of the transaction is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2026.
ENC is a next-generation HPAL project capable of producing mixed hydroxide precipitate, nickel and cobalt sulphate and nickel cathode.
It is expected to produce approximately 72,000 tonnes of nickel metal per annum, diversifying the company’s production and reducing its carbon emissions profile.
