South-east Asian country’s low-cost production of metal vital to electric cars has made traditional suppliers uncompetitive, says Christel Bories
Indonesia’s low-cost nickel suppliers will wipe out rivals in the next few years, cementing the country as the world’s dominant producer of the metal vital to electric car batteries, the head of French miner Eramet has warned.
The south-east Asian nation could end up accounting for more than three-quarters of the world’s highest class of pure nickel in five years from now, Christel Bories told the Financial Times, with radical consequences for competitors elsewhere.
“It has really made a big part of the old traditional players structurally non-competitive for the future,” Bories said. “This part of the industry will either disappear or be subsidised by governments.” She added: “The uncompetitive mines elsewhere will close. I’m not sure there will be so many governments deciding to subsidise big production with a lot of money just to compete with Indonesia production.”
The major shift in the market and tumbling nickel prices have already affected mining companies such as BHP, IGO and First Quantum, which have cut production and shut down mines in Western Australia.
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