Eyeing nickel and cobalt, Stellantis buys Kunico shares

By Redação AutoIndústria | 6/30/23 | Translated by Jorge Meditsch

Stellantis announced this Friday, 6/30, the signing of a binding offtake term sheet agreement securing a 35% future production offtake of nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate from Kuniko’s Norwegian exploration projects for nine years.
In addition, Stellantis agreed to purchase € 5 million in new equity in Kuniko, giving it a 19.99% shareholding on completion and the right to nominate one director to the Kuniko board.

“We are on an aggressive path to securing a holistic portfolio of raw materials needed to meet our Dare Forward 2030 electrification targets,” said Stellantis Chief Purchasing and Supply Chain Officer Maxime Picat. “With Kuniko, we are adding another lever to support our European battery needs with a local and environmentally conscious solution from its Norwegian projects.”

“This strategic partnership with Stellantis promotes sustainable European battery value chain solutions and validates the potential of our battery metals project portfolio in Norway,” said Antony Beckmand, Kuniko CEO.

“Together with Stellantis, we eagerly anticipate working hand in hand to achieve exploration success, move towards production, and make meaningful contributions to the growth and advancement of the European battery industry.”

Funds from the equity purchase will be applied to advance Kuniko’s brownfield and greenfield battery metals exploration projects in Norway, including nickel, cobalt and copper.

Stellantis announced plans of reaching a 100% passenger car battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales mix in Europe and a 50% passenger car and light-duty truck BEV sales mix in the United States by 2030.

In addition to Kuniko, Stellantis has agreements with Alliance Nickel, McEwen Copper, Terrafame, Vulcan Energy, Element 25 and Controlled Thermal Resources.