Prony is a part of the loss-making nickel business in New Caledonia and it has been searching for traders for the enterprise, which includes a nickel mine and hydrometallurgical processing plant.
Whereas Prony has mentioned it might promote a majority stake, Wellsted mentioned Sibanye shouldn’t be acquisitions for the time being.
Sibanye is finding out plans to transform the Sandouville plant to start out processing battery grade nickel as part of a push into inexperienced power. To advance the Sandouville plant conversion, Sibanye must safe provides for the feedstock first, Wellsted mentioned.
“A part of the feasibility is attempting to establish the place you’re going to get the combined hydroxide precipitate (MHP), which is the feedstock for the battery steel manufacturing at Sandouville,” he mentioned.
A group from Sibanye is presently in New Caledonia to review Prony as a possible provider, he added.
Prony produces MHP, an intermediate nickel product that’s appropriate for battery provide chains, and the agency beforehand introduced a contract to produce electrical automobile maker Tesla.
Native newspaper Les Nouvelles Caledoniennes reported on Monday that Sibanye is in superior talks to amass Prony, citing a supply near the matter.
The report got here after Sonia Backes, the top of New Caledonia’s southern province the place Prony Sources is positioned, informed public broadcaster La 1ere Nouvelle-Caledonie final week {that a} potential investor was in talks with Prony.
A spokesperson for Prony declined to remark.
The struggling New Caledonian nickel sector this yr battered by rioting within the French-controlled southern Pacific territory. Prony’s operations have been halted since Could as a result of unrest.
(By Felix Njini and Gus Trompiz; Modifying by David Evans)