Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – In recent days, the price of minerals, especially nickel, has experienced a crazy spike, even reaching the level of US$ 100,000 per tonne. Due to very high prices, nickel trading on the LME was closed for Wednesday (16/3/2022).
When nickel trading in the LME was re-opened, nickel prices declined again or reached US$ 45,590/ton. Even though the price fell, the nickel price was recorded to be still higher than the nickel reference mineral price (HMA) set by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) in March 2022 which was only US$ 23,537 per ton.
The high nickel price stimulates investment in the development of nickel processing plants or downstream nickel in Indonesia. Special Staff to the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources for the Acceleration of Industrial Development in the Energy and Mineral Resources Sector, Agus Tjahajana, confirmed that Indonesia, as a large nickel producer in the world, would be affected by the positive impact of high nickel prices.
He received a report that due to the high price, the world’s interest in nickel downstream investment in Indonesia was ogled.
“Of course, the stimulus for investment is getting stronger. Because I have received reports from several parties that there are lots of people wanting to enter Indonesia, to process nickel into materials that create added value, starting from nickel sulfate, we hope it can be turned into batteries (electric vehicles,” Agus told CNBC Indonesia.
As is well known, this investment leads to more downstream products from nickel. This is because the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources previously stated that they had limited the development of processing and refining plants (smelters) due to problems with raw materials, namely ferronickel (FeNi) and Nickel Pig Iron (NPI).
By 2024, there will be 53 processing and refining facilities (smelters) operating, of which 30 are nickel smelters.
“But I have received reports that many friends who work in other fields are interested in processing nickel either downstream,” said Agus.
Agus noted that currently there is a processing of low grade nickel into lemonite which is an active component of electric vehicle batteries, there is also a combination of low and high grade nickel. “It is noted that investors from Japan have started to come to Korea and moreover from China,” said Agus.
(pgr/pgr)
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