The Indian critical minerals producer Lohum is actively searching for nickel ores in Indonesia and the Philippines. However, this activity is only part of a larger objective—India's attempt to create its own supply chain for electric vehicle batteries that is not dependent on Chinese processing.
Founder and CEO Rajat Verma has set a goal to increase Lohum's nickel production capacity tenfold, from 1,000 to 10,000 metric tons per year, within eighteen months. Verma emphasized that the expansion is not limited to mining; the company currently processes all its nickel through secondary recycling at its Gujarat plant. He noted that achieving this goal reflects a focus on supply chain scale rather than final production volume, and access to a high-quality foreign mine could further increase potential.
To finance this plan, the company is seeking to raise about 30 billion rupees (approximately 315 million US dollars) through a combination of equity and debt capital and is already in talks with investors whose names have not yet been disclosed.
What makes this story industrial rather than merely mining-related is that Lohum is building manufacturing facilities around these minerals. In the state of Uttar Pradesh, the company plans to commission a cathode active material plant with a capacity of 5,000 tons per year by March. This stage belongs to the high-value steps of the battery chain traditionally controlled by Chinese firms. Concurrently, Lohum is constructing a rare earth magnet plant with an annual capacity of 1,200 tons, addressing a different part of the chain where China holds significant global influence through control over refining, not just raw material reserves.
Furthermore, the company is exploring sources of rare earth elements across Southeast Asia to support this facility. Lohum's ambitions extend beyond nickel and magnets. At the beginning of this month, the company became the first Indian firm to export lithium ore from a foreign asset, having acquired rights to ten lithium deposits in Zimbabwe with estimated reserves of 30 to 40 million tons. The plan involves processing this ore into lithium sulfate on-site before shipping it to India to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate, thereby shifting value-added production to Indian territory instead of exporting raw materials for further processing.
The company's strategy culminates in the construction of a lithium-ion battery recycling plant in Sharjah in partnership with the UAE government, thus covering the entire cycle: from mining and refining to cell material production and disposal.
The timeline for these plans is crucial. India aims to accelerate the adoption of renewable energy and electric vehicles to sustain economic growth and keenly recognizes that its production aspirations could stall without guaranteed mineral resources. This vulnerability was starkly demonstrated by recent instability in Indonesia's nickel sector: authorities sharply cut the mining quota in Weda Bay, the world's largest nickel ore mine, and a fire at a Chinese smelter caused new questions about the safety and stability of Indonesian supplies. The rise in Shanghai nickel futures after the quota reduction underscores the close link between Southeast Asian mining and Chinese production capacity—precisely the bottleneck that Lohum, and consequently Indian industrial policy, is trying to circumvent.
Meanwhile, Beijing is tightening its grip. China introduced a two-year plan to consolidate its non-ferrous metallurgy industry, aimed at curbing domestic price wars and encouraging producers to output higher value-added products, which will likely strengthen, rather than weaken, its dominance in critical mineral processing in the near term.
For India, the conclusion is clear: owning foreign mines is less important than controlling the production stages between them. Lohum's focus on cathode materials, magnets, and refining, rather than just raw nickel and lithium, indicates a bet that the true value in the battery supply chain lies in manufacturing capabilities—at the stage where China's advantage is hardest to overcome. Whether Lohum can secure financing, finalize mine acquisition deals, and meet construction deadlines will be an early test of how quickly India's overall industrial strategy can transform mineral access into production self-sufficiency.
