Jakarta. Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources will consider relaxing regulation on exporting low rate nickel or 1.8% nickel. Care taker of Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Luhut Binsar Panjaitan said that the type of nickel cannot be processed domestically so that government decided to export the low rate nickel.

The export of low rate nickel will be included under the revision of Government Regulation No.1 Year 2014 on Mineral and Coal Activities.

Corporate Secretary of PT Antam (Tbk) Trenggono Sutioso said that the low rate nickel does not have economic value if it is processed domestically. To date, the low rate nickels have been hoarded in Antam’s stock room so that the company has to find a solution to generate economic value of the low rate nickel stocks, specifically by exporting the nickel ores.

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As of today, about 5 ton of low rate nickel ores are hoarded in Antam’s stock room. The low rate nickel ore is worth for US$30 million per ton in global market. Therefore Antam may generate US$150 million of potential economic value through the export activity.

Antam is eyeing to export the low rate nickel to some countries. However, Trenggono refused to specify the name of the countries.

Government had prohibited the export of low rate nickel since 2014. Since then, the Philippines took over Indonesia’s position to supply nickel ores to Chine, with a 30 million to 40 million ton of export capacity per year.

(MUHAMMAD FARID/Translator)