Indonesia will reduce its nickel ore production by 52% year on year to 25 million wet metric tonnes (wmt) in 2020, according to the Indonesian Nickel Mining Association, while introducing four new domestic smelters to produce ferro-nickel and nickel pig iron (NPI) ahead of the domestic mineral ore export ban this year.
Indonesian authorities expect four new smelters to come into production in 2020 with a combined capacity of 200,923 tonnes per year, bringing the number of domestic smelters expected to be operational by 2022 to 29, with a total capacity of 69 million tpy.Indonesia produced 52.76 million wmt of nickel ore in 2019, a 128% increase...