Jakarta –
Indonesia has abundant natural resources in the mining sector. One of them is a rare commodity that is widely hunted in the world. The treasure is rare earth metal or rare earth.
Rare earth metals are claimed to have considerable economic value. No wonder many people in the world are vying for it. Then, what is meant by rare earth metals?
Rare earth metals are trace minerals that are magnetic and conductive, and are 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 sector, automotive, aviation, to the defense industry.
Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Ridwan Djamaluddin, said that Indonesia was actually late in exploring rare earth metals. Therefore, at this time there is not much definite information that can be obtained about the existing potential.
Ridwan said there were about eight locations that were mapped to contain rare earths in Indonesia. However, it is still new and still in the early exploration stage.
“In the exploration stage, we are limited, from the existing potential, it is found in 9 locations, and only 8 locations have been mapped,” said Ridwan. “From these 8 locations, initial exploration has only been carried out, in general, we have very limited information,” he said.
Ridwan said that rare earth metals were most commonly found in the Province of the Banka Belitung Islands. Its 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 senotim.
Apart from Bangka Belitung, other potentials were also found in Central Sulawesi with 443 tons in the form of laterite, and West Kalimantan with 219 tons. There is also a potential in North Sumatra of 19,917 tons.
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