The US, Japan and the Philippines will hold a trilateral summit on 11 April in Washington, with attempts to strengthen nickel supply chains potentially on the agenda.
US President Joe Biden, Japanese premier Fumio Kishida and the Philippines' President Ferdinand Marcos Jr are scheduled to hold the summit to discuss economic security. Further details are unknown but building a nickel supply chain are among items sought for the agenda.
"The US and Japan are collaborating to diversify non-Chinese supply chain for battery materials", a market participant told Argus, following a critical minerals agreement signed in March 2023 for co-operation between the two countries on supply chain development.
"Forming alliances with resource-rich countries to feed the US market has been formalised by the Japanese ministry of trade and industry (Meti) and is a key element of the Japanese battery strategy", according to the participant. "The Philippines is expected to play a significant role in the formation of this new supply chain, as it appears to be the best solution for sourcing non-Chinese nickel that qualifies for the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)." The Philippines is a major producer of nickel in southeast Asia, along with its neighbour Indonesia that is "heavily dominated by Chinese investment", the participant added.
"The Philippines welcomes foreign investment that bring EV technologies," said the country's secretary for trade and industry Alfredo Pascual on a past visit to Tokyo. "EV battery manufacturing, for example, can make use of our abundant mineral ore reserves of green metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt. We prefer that these ores be processed in the Philippines and value added to them before we export semi-finished or finished products."
Japan and the Philippines already have strong ties on nickel production. Japanese metals producer Sumitomo Metal Mining operates two nickel high-pressure acid leaching smelters in the Philippines with the Coral Bay and Taganito projects.
The US and Japan will hold separate talks, according to Meti minister Ken Saito on 9 April. A new new bilateral ministerial dialogue aims to discussing possible collaboration on their major decarbonisation strategies, involving the US IRA and Japan's green transformation policy. Details were undisclosed but will be discussed among Japanese delegates and US White House climate adviser John Podesta, Saito added.
