Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The government, in this case the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), has raised its voice regarding the issue of importing nickel ore to Indonesia from the Philippines. Even though Indonesia itself is the country with the largest nickel production in the world.
Special Staff to the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources for the Acceleration of Mineral and Coal Governance, Irwandy Arif, said that Indonesia has nickel ore resources of 17 billion tons and nickel ore reserves reaching 5.2 billion tons.
With the resources and reserves it has, Indonesia can only survive on high grade nickel or saprolite reserves for 6-11 years. Meanwhile, low grade nickel or limonite can still last for the next 25-112 years.
Meanwhile, Irwandy believes that there are issues regarding nickel imports to Indonesia because several domestic smelters or nickel refining and processing facilities have not had time to mine nickel reserves close to the smelters.
So the smelter chose to import nickel ore from the Philippines. “All of our reserves, which are ideally said to be 5.2 billion (tons), of course cannot be exploited all at once to produce nickel ore. Of course, gradually. So, among all these reserves which have not yet been mined near the smelter which requires nickel ore, “Of course the smelter will be short,” explained Irwandy to CNBC Indonesia in the Mining Zone program, quoted Thursday (19/10/2023).
He said Indonesia needs to balance demand and supply of nickel ore so that there is no shortage of supply.
“Well, this is also a sign of how careful we are in balancing supply and demand so that all existing smelters still have an adequate supply of ore,” he added.
Meanwhile, he encouraged exploration of nickel reserves to continue so that the calculated resources can become reserves that will definitely enable Indonesia to extend the life of nickel.
“Apart from that, there are still many green fields in Indonesia that have not been explored at all. Now these are the potentials that are open to those who want to carry out nickel mining in Indonesia. So in fact the age and number of reserves and resources will increase if “We are intensifying this level of exploration,” said Irwandy.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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