NC1 signs MOU with Pure Battery Technologies, aiming to close the gap from nickel intermediate to battery grade product

Our nickel Investment Nico Resources (ASX: NC1) just signed a MoU on a potential downstream partnership.

NC1 signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pure Battery Technologies looking to:

1. Evaluate whether or not the two companies can build an integrated nickel and cobalt refining platform spanning Australia, the United States and Europe.
2. Applying Pure’s processing tech on NC1’s resource to produce Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (“MHP”) and NMC battery precursor cathode active material (“pCAM”).

(MHP is a solid intermediate product containing a mix of nickel and cobalt, pCAM is the chemical mixture of nickel, cobalt, and manganese required to manufacture a battery cathode)

At a very high level it looks like any deal that eventuates here will be for NC1’s nickel to be used with Pure’s processing tech.

NC1’s already shown that its project - one of the largest, highest grade undeveloped nickel-cobalt projects globally - can produce a MHP product.

The 2022 Pre Feasibility Study showed the production of Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP), i.e. an intermediate nickel-cobalt product.

So it will be interesting to see what comes from this partnership.

We note Pure owns:

• An operating refinery at Hagen, Germany, with a permitted expansion underway to produce up to 15,000 tpa of pCAM
• Patented hydrometallurgical technology developed via the University of Queensland which is described as low-emission, low-cost
• One of very few western pCAM producers with both an operating plant and a permitted expansion pathway

So there is a lot to like from an NC1 shareholder perspective - Hydromet (environmentally friendly), an operating plant and one of few western pCAM producers.

We think the deal could be a way for NC1 to get exposure to more of the upside from its resource downstream.

This is an example at a basic level of what each side would be aiming to do in the partnership:

(source)

And more importantly open the door to strategic funding to get its project built.

We note that today’s announcement also flags that PBT is in discussions with:

• US Department of Commerce
• US Department of Energy
• US Department of War

This is to establish a US based facility producing high-purity nickel products and pCAM.

So today’s MOU positions NC1 alongside a partner that already has lines into the US critical minerals funding apparatus.

A quick overview of NC1’s project

NC1 is currently capped at ~$32M.

Its project has a 2022 Pre-Feasibility Study (using a US$20K/tonne nickel price) which delivered:

• NPV: A$3.34BN
• IRR: 18.02%
• Payback: 4.9 years

And the project NPV increases by ~A$800M for every 10% rise in the nickel price above US$21K/tonne.

(At US$30K/tonne, the NPV nearly doubles to ~A$6.5BN.) (source)

The nickel price is currently sitting at ~US$19,500/tonne and has been rising up ~36% from the December 2025 low with two macro tailwinds in play:

• Indonesian production quotas (announced February 2026) (source)
• Sulphur supply disruption from the Strait of Hormuz closure making the Indonesian production story more challenged (~75-80% of Indonesia’s sulphur comes from the Middle East) (source)

So we have:

• The macro setup (rising nickel prices, geopolitical Indonesian and Chinese supply risk, robotic thematic) is the demand-side tailwind
• The Pure MoU on the supply-side pathway to provide an answer - i.e. how NC1 actually delivers nickel into Western battery supply chains

What do we want to see NC1 do next?

NC1 just put out its March quarterly report a few days ago (see it in full here). NC1 ended the quarter with $5.42M in cash.

Over the next few months the two main things we want to see NC1 do are:

1. Drill out and upgrade defined resources

NC1 mentioned in the quarterly that to upgrade the current resource in full into the measured category, it would need to do ~200,000m of RC drilling.

But, the focus would be on the highest grade parts of the resource first to get that upgraded.

We want to see NC1 drill out and upgrade its current resources.

Here are the milestones we will be tracking:

🔲 Drilling commences

🔲 Drilling completed

🔲 Resource upgrade completed

2. Greenfields exploration?

This one we didn’t really expect to see in the quarterly report.

NC1 explicitly mentioned it would “continue to review greenfields exploration opportunities in the Musgraves region” and even had a section on the PGE potential of its broader project area.

(source)

Still very early days on the greenfields stuff, but with NC1’s market cap just $26M, the market may show an interest in a few swing for the fence exploration holes.

3. Progress on MoU with Pure Battery Technologies to produce pCAM (battery feedstock).

Today NC1 has signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Pure Battery Technologies (PBT) that will look into developing an integrated supply chain.

This is from NC1’s in ground resource that has a PFS where it can produce a MHP (Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate) product which PBT could then turn into battery ready nickel product pCAM (pre cursor cathode active material).

So we hope to see this progress further because it could open up additional funding and developmental pathways that could make financing easier to obtain and increase revenues due to the integration and end product produced.