With its new battery chemicals plant producing nickel and cobalt sulphates, Terrafame is responding to growing demand from the battery industry. Insta supplied the instrumentation installations for the plant, drawing on its previous experience of working at the site as well as its extensive instrumentation expertise and resources.
Published on 16 May 2022. Translated on 13 october 2026.
The number of electric vehicles is expected to increase many times over during this decade. Finland is the only country in Europe with deposits of all the valuable battery minerals: nickel, cobalt and lithium.
Terrafame is a Finnish multi-metal company that supplies battery chemicals to the global battery industry. The company’s main product, nickel-cobalt sulphide, is further processed into nickel and cobalt sulphates used, among other applications, as raw materials for electric vehicle batteries. Terrafame’s entire production process, from mining to battery chemicals, is located within the same industrial site in Tuhkakylä, Sotkamo.
The impacts of the company’s mining operations on the natural environment and species are regularly monitored in accordance with the conditions of its environmental permit.
Enough nickel sulphate for up to one million electric vehicle batteries a year
In autumn 2018, Terrafame decided to build one of the world’s largest battery chemicals production lines at its industrial site.
The new plant produces nickel and cobalt sulphates, as well as ammonium sulphate as a by-product for use in the chemical industry and as a fertiliser. The production target for nickel sulphate is approximately 170,000 tonnes per year, enough for up to one million electric vehicle batteries.
At its peak, the construction phase employed approximately 600 people, and the investment totalled around EUR 240 million.
Extensive experience and sufficient resources are key strengths for Insta
Insta Automation supplied the instrumentation installations for all three stages of the battery chemicals plant’s production process. The project was significant in scale for Insta. The contract, carried out from March 2020 to April 2021, totalled approximately 30,000 working hours, with an average project team of 25 installers and a site supervisor.
In total, Insta supplied approximately 150 kilometres of instrumentation cable and 200 Insta-manufactured field enclosures, and installed 2,000 measuring instruments at the battery chemicals plant. The plant included several potentially explosive areas, which placed specific requirements on the installation work.
Tero Lehtinen, Project Manager responsible for the instrumentation installations at the battery chemicals plant, sees Insta’s previous experience of working at the site, as well as the expertise and resources of its installation business, as key strengths.
“We have worked at the Terrafame site from the very beginning and have successfully delivered our work there. This contract was a major undertaking, and as one of the Nordic region’s largest instrumentation installation specialists, Insta has the experience and resources needed to deliver a project of this scale,” Lehtinen says, and continues:
“Although the site was extensive and our scope increased as the project progressed, we remained on schedule and were able to respond to the changes and challenges that arose during the project.”
The start-up of the new plant began in June 2021, and the first customer deliveries commenced in July 2021. The plant was expected to reach full production capacity during 2022. The plant employs approximately 150 people.
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Tero Lehtinen
Project Manager, Installations
Insta Automation
Tampere, Oulu
etunimi.sukunimi (at) insta.fi