“We have asked for a permit to export 6 million tons of nickel a year, in line with a prevailing regulation. However, it will be up to the government to decide the exact figure,” Antam president director Tedy Badrujaman said on Wednesday in Jakarta.

The government decided earlier this year to relax the export ban for low-grade nickel with content below 1.7 percent, along with copper concentrates and washed bauxite in return for a miner’s commitment to meet several requirements, including developing a new smelter within five years.

The ministry issued a regulation on March 2 detailing the technical guidance to process such an export permit.

Antam hopes to obtain the permit within the next three weeks and export the low-grade nickel to China, Japan and several European countries.

The publicly listed miner is optimistic that it can improve its performance this year after suffering from lower sales due to a drop in nickel prices and because of the presence of many nickel smelters in recent years.

Antam booked Rp 9.1 trillion (US$683.04 million) in sales last year, seeing a 13.5 percent drop from 2015. (tas)

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