Manufacturers and investors should beware the reputational and operational risks of dealing in Indonesian nickel
Earlier this month, the US government sounded the alarm over the use of forced labor in the nickel mines of Indonesia.
The finding has major implications for the energy transition because large amounts of nickel are needed to produce electric vehicle (EV) batteries and other low-carbon energy technologies.
While global markets face recession, India is riding the wave of growth, with retailers aggressively expanding their operations
There’s a constant buzz about Turner Road, the upscale thoroughfare that passes through the heart of Mumbai’s trendy Bandra West neighborhood. Bandra has gained a reputation for attracting the city’s up-and-coming, be they tech execs, property moguls or Bollywood elites. They live, eat, drink, and socialize there. Turner Road is where they buy fine jewelry.
The street is lined with the full gamut of local jewelers, ranging from well-established family businesses to the more imposing chain stores.
The Department of Labor’s recent forced labor determination could push Jakarta into further dependence on China and Chinese firms.
On September 10, the United States Department of Labor (DOL) added Indonesian nickel to its list of goods produced by child or forced labor. Nickel is a critical mineral with applications in steelmaking, aircraft engines and turbines, and perhaps most prominently in renewable energy and vehicles, where it is one of the key components of nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) lithium-ion batteries.
This listing highlights the dominance of Indonesia’s nickel sector by Chinese firms and deals yet another blow to the country’s aspirations to secure a critical minerals-specific free trade agreement (CMS-FTA) with the United States.
Sept 13 (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Friday locked in steep tariff hikes on Chinese imports, including a 100% duty on electric vehicles, to boost protections for strategic industries from China’s state-driven industrial practices.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said that many of the tariffs, including a 100% duty on Chinese EVs, 50% on solar cells and 25% on steel, aluminum, EV batteries and key minerals, would take effect on Sept. 27.
(Bloomberg) — A couple hours outside Houston, in a remote field near a Dow Chemical Co. plant, America’s bid to undercut China’s grip on the global supply of rare earth minerals critical to high technology has yet to break ground.
Even when it does, China’s dominance of the market — it controls about 70% of output and more than 90% of refining — means that goal will likely remain out of reach.
(Bloomberg) — European makers of stainless steel are turning to Indonesia for nickel as the country’s booming output forces plants in other countries to shutter.
Exports to Europe of Indonesian nickel pig iron — an ingredient for stainless steel used primarily by Chinese producers — to Europe have surged to 87,485 tons this year from just 1,006 tons in 2023, according to Indonesian government data. The Netherlands, Italy and the UK have taken the shipments, the data show.
(Bloomberg) — An unexpected shutdown at one of China’s biggest lithium mines has left the industry scrambling to judge if the move will be enough to end the battery material’s prolonged price slump.
The share prices of lithium miners from Australia to South America spiked Wednesday after reports that Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., the world’s biggest battery producer, was suspending a mine that accounts for about 5% to 6% of global supply. Citigroup Inc. boosted its price forecasts, while Chinese futures for the metal surged.
(Bloomberg) — Chinese billionaire Xiang Guangda’s battery company is hunting for more US investment opportunities despite mounting geopolitical tension between the world’s economic juggernauts. REPT BATTERO Energy Co., a unit of Xiang’s Tsingshan Holding Group Co., this week opened an office in California, marking its first US outpost.
REPT “is surely giving full respect to the world’s second largest energy storage market,” Chairman Hui Cao said during an interview. Although a specific target hasn’t yet been set, the aim is for the US to “contribute more than 10%” to REPT’s revenue.
Pull towards Russia and China grows stronger, says boss of Kazatomprom
Kazatomprom’s chief executive has warned that Russia’s war on Ukraine is making it harder for the world’s largest uranium producer to keep supplying the west as the gravitational pull towards Moscow and Beijing grows stronger.
Meirzhan Yussupov, chief of the Kazakh state miner, said sanctions caused by the war had created obstacles to supplying western utilities. Kazakhstan produces 43 per cent of the world’s uranium, equivalent to the market share that the Opec cartel has over oil.
President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has returned from China, where he attended the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). During the visit, Mnangagwa visited quite a number of companies, including Huawei, as well as giving a speech at the FOCAC, and later addressed the 8th Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs.
In a statement, the president declared: This is the best time to invest in Zimbabwe. Oh really, Mr. President! What a bold thing to say! However, has there been any genuine investments by the Chinese in Zimbabwe?
(Bloomberg) — Indonesia’s government sees nickel prices stabilizing near current levels in the future, as new plants in the world’s biggest producer offset rising demand and keep the market well supplied.
Prices on the London Metal Exchange should hold around $15,000 to $16,000 a ton in the short to medium term, Septian Hario Seto, a deputy at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment, said in a presentation in Bali on Thursday.
China’s iron ore futures suffered their worst one-day price drop for almost two years on Monday, but the evaporating optimism in the market has yet to show up in imports of the key raw material for making steel. Contracts on the Dalian Commodity Exchange ended day trading on Monday at 723.5 yuan ($101.83) a metric ton, 4.83% down from the previous close and the largest daily loss since Oct. 31, 2022.
The weakness was mirrored by Singapore Exchange futures , which closed at $96.60 a ton, down 2.13% from the prior close and the lowest since Aug. 16. The catalyst for Monday’s weakness was a raft of data that indicated that the world’s second-biggest economy is struggling to gain momentum.
The hand of history is sometimes cruel. After enjoying status as an international diamond trading hub, Goa is now concerned about turning into a major coal importing hub in Indo-Pacific. Since there is a lot of attention to coal in local public discourse, people have forgotten the position of Goa in a related commodity- diamonds. Diamond and coal offer stark contrasts.
Diamond and coal are allotropes of carbon. Diamond is defined as a glimmering glass-like mineral that is an allotrope of carbon in which each atom is surrounded by four others in the form of a tetrahedron. Coal is defined as a black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel.
Afghanistan being a landlocked country has huge strategic importance followed by immense mineral deposits. It is estimated that it has untapped resources worth of 1 to 3 billion USD. These resources include Oil, Gas, Lithium, Copper, Coal, Gold, Cobalt, Rare Earth Minerals, Aluminum, Uranium, Zinc, Iron Ore, Timber, Chromite, Marble, Limestone, Sandstone, Barite, Sulphur, Gypsum, and Nickel.
The states equipped with technology have opportunities to harvest these resources in the presence of myriad of challanges. Once tapped, these resources can alter the fate of war torn and poverty stricken Afghanistan.
Despite the apparent benefits, there are significant legal gaps and technological limitations that must be addressed before this mineral wealth on the seafloor can be brought to market.
In late June, Japanese researchers found around 230 million metric tons of critical minerals on the seabed within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone. The resources include enough cobalt to meet the country’s consumption needs for 75 years and over a decade’s supply of nickel. These minerals are crucial components of electric vehicle car batteries central to the low-carbon energy transition.
This discovery is also good news to critics in the West anxious to strip China of its monopolistic control over supply chains for components crucial to high-tech goods and defense technologies.
