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Govt maintains export ban on nickel, relaxes rules for other metals until 2023
The new ministerial regulation is the latest in a series of back-and-forth policies issued over the past 11 years related to banning raw metal exports as the country, a major coal and raw metals producer, seeks to industrialize its mineral wealth.
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The Pomalaa nickel smelter in Kolaka, Southeast Sulawesi, operated by state-owned metal miner PT Aneka Tambang (Antam). (Antam/Antam)
T
he Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry has enforced an export ban on nickel ore, while relaxing it for two other metals for more than a year, through a recently issued regulation that serves as a derivative for the new Coal and Mineral Mining Law.
Ministerial Regulation No. 17/2020 issued on Nov. 11 maintains the nickel ore export ban that started this year but allows miners to continue exporting washed bauxite and copper anode slime until June 2023, on the condition they are either building or already working with a smelter.
The two metal concentrates, washed bauxite and anode slime, are respectively used to make aluminum and certain precious metals such as gold and silver. Indonesia is a big exporter of these metals.
“Only nickel cannot be exported because it is banned by [the preceding] Ministerial Regulation No. 11/2019,” said the ministry’s mineral business development director, Yunus Saefulhak, in a text message to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
The new ministerial regulation is the latest in a series of back-and-forth policies issued over the past 11 years related to banning raw metal exports as the country, a major coal and raw metals producer, seeks to industrialize its mineral wealth.
Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel ore producing country, has banned exports of the commodity since January to push miners to develop smelters and refine the metal ore domestically so they can export higher-value products.
