Twitter

Nickel Laterites

Cobalt Crossroads: Why Indonesia Still Trails Behind the DRC in the Tech Supply Race? – by M. Ismail Anshari (Modern Diplomacy – May 26, 2025)

Homepage

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is widely recognized as the world’s largest producer of cobalt, accounting for around 70% of total global output.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is widely recognized as the world’s largest producer of cobalt, accounting for around 70% of total global output. Numerous foreign mining companies operate in the DRC, employing local miners and simultaneously contributing to the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

However, the country’s mining practices face significant challenges in meeting Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards, challenges that risk disrupting the supply chains of global technology firms. Despite this, many major tech companies still prefer cobalt sourced from the DRC over exploring alternatives like Indonesia, another resource-rich nation.

Read more

Assessing Indonesia’s Strategic Value for U.S. Battery Ambitions – by Anna Broughel and Selma Khalil (National Interest – May 20, 2025)

https://nationalinterest.org/

Indonesia’s strategic value means that it can position itself as a one-stop source from mine to precursor chemicals.

Lacking sufficient domestic extraction and processing capacity for many critical minerals, the United States faces an urgent need to secure reliable battery supply chains. One promising pathway is through a deeper partnership with a nation that has quietly emerged as central to the future of battery technology: Indonesia.

The country holds the world’s largest nickel reserves and, in recent years, has become the largest producer of nickel worldwide, transforming from a raw nickel exporter into a major processing and manufacturing hub.

Read more

Vale’s Strategic Alternatives for Nickel Assets in 2025 – by John Zadeh (Discovery Alert – April 30, 2025)

Home

Market Challenges and Future Outlook

Brazilian mining giant Vale S.A. faces critical decisions regarding its nickel operations amid a complex global market landscape dominated by oversupply pressures and shifting demand dynamics. The company’s strategic review of its nickel portfolio, initiated in early 2025, reflects both short-term operational challenges and long-term optimism about nickel’s role in the energy transition.

This report synthesizes Vale’s current challenges, strategic options, and the broader market forces shaping its decisions, with a focus on Indonesia’s disruptive production growth and the evolving electric vehicle (EV) sector.

What Challenges Is Vale Facing in the Nickel Market?

Read more

Nickel production disruption in Indonesia raises supply concerns (Mining Technology – April 15, 2025)

https://www.mining-technology.com/

A landslide occurred in a tailings area associated with PT QMB New Energy Materials in Indonesia’s Morowali Industrial Park.

Indonesia’s Morowali Industrial Park, a nickel-producing hub on Sulawesi Island, is facing a production halt and intensified scrutiny over nickel extraction methods following a landslide last month, reported Bloomberg.

The incident has raised concerns about the safety of high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) methods used in nickel extraction and the future of a critical supply source for the battery industry. While HPAL is cost-effective and less carbon-intensive, it produces nearly twice the tailings, requiring careful waste management to avoid production disruptions.

Read more

Nickel, paradise and ‘emancipation’ – by Cooper Williams and Yasmine Wright Gittins (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – April 10, 2025)

https://www.abc.net.au/

A bet on nickel gave many New Caledonians hopes of prosperity and independence. But when the economy turned, it left behind a ghost town full of broken hearts.

It was a symbol of economic freedom — offering a chance at prosperity for communities who shared little in New Caledonia’s wealth. Standing tall by the turquoise waters of the French territory’s lagoons, the Koniambo nickel factory once hummed with activity, feeding the world’s insatiable demand for the lucrative metal.

Now, silence blankets its heavy machinery. The site sits abandoned, its overseas workforce long gone, and its local staff — mostly Indigenous Kanak people — out of jobs.

Read more

Is Indonesia’s ‘Nickel Nationalism’ A Smart Strategy? – Analysis – by Dr. Sameer Kumar (Eurasia Review – April 4, 2025)

Home

Indonesia sits atop the world’s biggest nickel reserves – a metal essential for electric vehicle (EV) batteries and the renewable energy transition. In recent years, Jakarta has boldly wielded its resource might by banning exports of raw nickel ore to force global companies to invest in domestic processing.

This “nickel nationalism” has catapulted Indonesia into becoming a major player in the EV supply chain, attracting billions in foreign investment and fostering local industry. President Joko Widodo touts it as a smart strategy to move Indonesia up the value chain.

Read more

Multiple Dams Fail at Indonesian Nickel-Mining Facilities – by Ellen Moore (Earthworks.org – March 28, 2025)

Homepage

Three people are feared dead and hundreds more are at risk of negative health impacts after multiple tailings dams, which store toxic mine waste, collapsed inside an industrial park in Indonesia. According to media and worker testimony, on March 16, the PT Huayue Nickel Cobalt tailings storage facility was breached, and liquified tailings flowed into the Bahadopi River.

The breach flooded facilities at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) and the village of Labota with a wave of red water, putting the health of workers and 341 families at risk through exposure to heavy metals.

Read more

Indonesian watchdog demands prosecution for environmental crime ‘cartels’ – by Hans Nicholas Jong (Mongabay.com – March 14, 2025)

Mongabay – Conservation News

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, has filed a formal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, accusing 47 companies of environmental destruction and corruption. The companies, which operate in industries like palm oil, mining and forestry, are accused of being responsible for 437 trillion rupiah ($26.5 billion) in state losses.

Based on field investigations and spatial analysis, Walhi says it has identified 18 forms of gratuities paid by the companies to officials in the 47 cases. In some of these cases, Walhi found that officials had approved the rescinding of forest status for certain areas by revising zoning plans, thereby allowing the companies to clear forests for their concessions.

Read more

Nickel in 2040: A supply crisis in the making – by Nilanjan Banik (Time of India – March 21, 2025)

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/

Hazarding a guess on the future demand-supply situation, especially for the metal and mining sector, is an exercise fraught with dangers. A fast- changing world order, disruption in global supply chains, the crippling effect of climate change, untimely closure of mines, changed government regulations, wars, changing demand-supply equations can suddenly change the contours of the industry, and with it, the most detailed projections. Not to forget the serious impact of technology costs and innovations.

However, given its growing significance and importance of nickel in different applications like construction, petrochemicals, automobiles, fabrication and welding, transportation, electronics, water sector as well as in low- carbon technologies, it is important to assess its availability and affordability in the near and long-terms as the demand for the critical metal mounts.

Read more

UK watchdog fines London Metal Exchange over handling of 2022 nickel crisis – by Polina Devitt, Eric Onstad (Reuters/MSM.com – March 20, 2025)

https://www.msn.com/

Britain’s financial regulator fined the London Metal Exchange on Thursday for allowing nickel prices to surge out of control three years ago in the first ever enforcement action against a UK exchange.

The Financial Conduct Authority imposed a penalty of 9.2 million pounds ($11.9 million) on the world’s oldest and largest market for industrial metals after an investigation found multiple failures to deal with severe market stress.

Read more

Spotlight: Brazil’s US$4bn nickel potential (bnamericas.com – March 12, 2025)

https://www.bnamericas.com/en/

Brazil has huge potential to develop nickel projects and benefit from the energy transition, but it also must solve significant problems. National nickel reserves are estimated at 16Mt, putting Brazil in third place globally, after Indonesia (55Mt) and Australia (24Mt).

Output, however, is still modest, totaling 89,000t in 2023, for a global market share of 2.47%, which makes Brazil the ninth producer, according to US Geological Survey data. But Brazil is the only Latin American country which is a top 10 global nickel player.

Read more

Nickel miners dig up Indonesia’s Gebe Island despite Indigenous and legal opposition – by Jaya Barends (Mongabay.com – March 11, 2025)

Mongabay – Conservation News

GEBE ISLAND, Indonesia — Abdul Manan Magtiblo watched the excavator dump a piece of Gebe Island into the back of a truck. Barely a thicket remained on the buzz-cut upland above Umera village as the vehicle drove off to the nearby port.

“That’s the PT Bartra Putra Mulia [BPM] nickel mine,” Manan, the village chief, told Mongabay Indonesia. Locals like Manan say life has become harder since 2020, when the company began operating here on Gebe, a remote island of fewer than 6,000 people in the Halmahera Sea, on Indonesia’s Pacific rim.

Read more

Column: China’s grip on global nickel supply tightens with Anglo sale – by Andy Home (Reuters – February 24, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

Anglo American’s sale of its Brazilian nickel business to China’s MMG Ltd is a corporate win-win. Anglo gets to deliver on its promise to shareholders to simplify its portfolio and pockets up to $500 million.

MMG, which is already a major producer of copper, cobalt and zinc, gets to diversify into another metal and expand its geographic footprint into Brazil. It is also buying into the one part of the nickel market that is showing signs of price resilience amid a glut of over-supply.

Read more

Top leadership changes in New Caledonia’s nickel stakeholder – by Patrick Decloitre (Radio New Zealand – February 20, 2025)

https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/

French mining giant Eramet has announced major changes in its leadership. The company is a major stakeholder in New Caledonia’s nickel industry, being the owner of Société Le Nickel (SLN), the French territory’s oldest nickel mine and smelter operator.

Eramet’s current chair/chief executive Christel Bories will relinquish her CEO position, only to retain her role as chair. The changes are expected to become effective at Eramet’s shareholder’s general meeting, scheduled on 27 May, Eramet said in a release. The new director general/CEO will be Paulo Castellari.

Read more

China-Backed $3 Billion Indonesia Nickel Smelter Risks Shutdown – by Eddie Spence and Alfred Cang (Bloomberg News/Financial Post – February 20, 2025)

https://financialpost.com/

One of the biggest nickel smelters in Indonesia has slashed production and is close to shutting down completely, just months after the collapse of its Chinese parent company.

(Bloomberg) — One of the biggest nickel smelters in Indonesia has slashed production and is close to shutting down completely, just months after the collapse of its Chinese parent company.

PT Gunbuster Nickel Industry, which is affiliated with bankrupted stainless steel giant Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry Co., is delaying payments to local energy suppliers and is unable to procure nickel ore, according to people familiar with the situation.

Read more