[ad_1]
JAKARTA, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Indonesia will restrict building of nickel smelters to make sure new crops produce high-value merchandise and observe inexperienced ideas within the manufacturing course of, state information company Antara reported on Friday, citing the nation’s funding minister.
Noting many current smelters already produce nickel pig iron or ferronickel, Minister Bahlil Lahadalia mentioned Indonesia wanted to prioritise utilizing ore reserves to create larger worth supplies together with enter for batteries for electrical autos.
“Now we favor to push downstreaming with 80% to 100% worth addition,” he was quoted as saying.
Nickel pig iron and ferronickel sometimes include as much as 40% of nickel.
Indonesia banned exports of unprocessed nickel ore in 2020 to advertise growth of nickel smelting at residence.
The federal government has mentioned that the export worth of processed nickel merchandise final 12 months was estimated at $30 billion, or ten occasions larger than the export worth of nickel 4 years in the past.
Smelters in Indonesia typically use coal as a supply of vitality and the minister mentioned that new smelters needs to be powered by inexperienced vitality with out giving additional particulars.
“Trying ahead we’ll restrict growth of smelters that aren’t oriented in direction of inexperienced vitality,” Bahlil mentioned.
He didn’t present a timeline for the coverage. The Funding ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Beforehand, a senior official on the vitality ministry mentioned that Indonesia’s high-grade nickel ore reserve will solely final lower than twenty years if there aren’t any restrictions on smelter building.
As of 2021, Southeast Asia’s greatest financial system had 15 nickel smelters, a authorities official beforehand mentioned.
Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman
Enhancing by Fransiska Nangoy and Ed Davies
Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Rules.
[ad_2]
Source link
