Jakarta –
European countries are currently being horrified by the discovery of metal mining sources called rare earths or rare earth in their territory. Specifically, it was rumored to be over a million tonnes rare earth metals has been found in the far north of Sweden.
This news became very excited because previously rare earth metals had never been mined in Europe. Launching from the BBC, previously around 98% of the rare earth needs used in the EU in 2021 were imported from China.
So, what is a rare earth metal?
Rare earth metals are associated minerals that are magnetic and conductive, widely used in electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, speakers, and others. In addition, rare earth metals are also used for other sectors, ranging from the health, automotive, aviation, to the defense industry.
Seeing its uses, rare earth metals are claimed to have considerable economic value. Therefore do not be surprised if the results of this one mine are touted as a “treasure” belonging to the state.
Then what about Indonesia? Do we also have this treasure?
The Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ridwan Djamaluddin, once explained that Indonesia was actually late in exploring rare earth metals. Therefore, currently there is not much definite information that can be obtained about the potential that exists.
Nevertheless, Ridwan said there were around eight locations that were mapped as containing rare earths in Indonesia. But even that is still new and still in the initial exploration stage.
“In our exploration stage it is limited, from the existing potential there are 9 locations, and only 8 locations have been mapped,” said Ridwan. “From these 8 locations, only initial exploration was carried out, in general we have very limited information,” he continued.
Ridwan said the most common rare earth metals were found in the Bangka Belitung Islands Province. The potential reaches tens to hundreds of thousands of tons of rare earth metals. “Most of them are in the province of the Bangka Belitung Islands, especially in South Bangka,” he said.
In the data presented by Ridwan, Bangka Belitung has a potential of 186,663 rare earth metals in the form of monazite and 20,734 rare earth metals in the form of senotime.
Apart from Bangka Belitung, potential rare earth metals others were also found in Central Sulawesi of 443 tonnes in the form of laterite, and West Kalimantan of 219 tonnes. There is also potential in North Sumatra of 19,917 tons.
(fdl/fdl)
