The nickel market is banking on Chinese investment in Indonesian high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) projects to supply electric vehicle battery materials. However, travel curbs in place due to the coronavirus are putting ambitious start-up timeframes in doubt.

Battery recycling firm GEM will buy between 74,400 and 178,560 tonnes of nickel materials from a HPAL project on the island of Obi over eight years from 2021, it said in a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The project on Obi is a joint venture between China's Ningbo Lygend and Indonesian firm Harita to produce nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate for use in electric vehicle batteries and intermediate mixed hydroxide precipitate.

Obi is due to start production this quarter, Lygend said in July.

The deal will see GEM buy between 9,300 to 22,320 tonnes of nickel and 1,162 to 2,790 tonnes of cobalt a year from Obi.

Lygend "will make every effort to ensure that the project enters commercial operation before June 30, 2021," GEM said.

GEM, with partners including Tsingshan Holding Group, had been due to start trial production at its own HPAL project on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi last month.

(Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by Pratima Desai and Elaine Hardcastle)