Massachusetts-based critical metals refining company Nth Cycle has signed a 10-year agreement valued at about $1.1 billion with global commodities trader Trafigura to supply refined battery metals.
The deal – announced as government and industry leaders gathered in Tokyo for the first Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum – is the largest recycled battery metals refining agreement of its kind.
Under the agreement, Trafigura will purchase 2,000 tonnes of contained nickel in mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) and 1,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate. The materials will be refined from 12,000 tonnes of battery “black mass,” the shredded material recovered from used lithium-ion batteries.
For Western battery supply chains, the scale of the deal is significant. It’s also the largest multi‑metal commercial agreement between a recycled battery feedstock supplier and a refiner.
Scaling recycled battery metals
Nth Cycle first commercialized its technology in 2024 at a facility in Fairfield, Ohio. Now the company is planning new operations in South Carolina and the Netherlands to support the Trafigura agreement.
The company will install its commercial electro‑extraction system, called Oyster, at existing facilities in both locations. Site selection for the new plants is expected to wrap up this year, with operations scheduled to begin in 2028.
A different approach to refining
Refining battery metals in the US and Europe has been difficult to scale. Traditional refineries require billions of dollars in upfront investment, long permitting timelines, and large volumes of material to operate profitably.
Nth Cycle says its Oyster system is built to avoid those hurdles. Because the units are compact and modular, they can be deployed in existing facilities and brought online much faster.
The company says Oyster can cut refinery build times from more than five years to less than two, reduce capital costs by up to 70%, and still operate profitably at much smaller scales.
“There is an urgent need to build capacity for black mass refining and develop more diversified and robust supply chains – particularly in the US, where securing domestic critical mineral processing capabilities is increasingly central to energy and industrial policy,” said Megan O’Connor, cofounder and CEO of Nth Cycle.
Daniel von Arx, global head of battery metals at Trafigura, said the partnership helps strengthen global supply chains for critical minerals used in batteries.
“There are no critical minerals without refining, and the signing of this offtake agreement demonstrates our commitment to supporting critical minerals security,” von Arx said.
New refining hubs in the US and Europe
Nth Cycle’s planned South Carolina facility – known internally as Project SHIELD (Strategic Hub for Industrial Electro‑Extraction & Logistics Defense) – is aimed at strengthening domestic supply chains for such sectors as electric vehicles, battery storage, and AI data centers.
The site will benefit from port access and proximity to a rapidly growing energy and manufacturing corridor in the US Southeast.
Nth Cycle is also planning a European operation in the Netherlands. The project is backed by a €7.5 million grant from the Dutch National Growth Fund under the Critical Raw Materials (CRM) Lion initiative.
The EU has been pushing to build more circular battery supply chains as it tightens rules around critical minerals. That includes mandates to use recycled cobalt and nickel in new EVs, limits on shipping black mass between EU countries, and a ban on exporting the material to China.
Read more: Critical EV battery materials face a supply crunch by 2030
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