Indonesia tightens control on nickel as the US and China scramble for minerals

HANOI, Vietnam — Indonesia is tightening state management over the world’s largest nickel provide after years of betting the metallic would anchor a homegrown electric-vehicle trade, and simply as international demand begins shifting away from heavy reliance on nickel.

The transfer may nonetheless ripple via international EV provide chains as america and China compete for critical minerals. Indonesia sits on the center of the nickel market: its share of world provide jumped to about 60% in 2024 from 31.5% in 2020, in accordance with S&P International Market Intelligence, after former President Joko Widodo banned uncooked ore exports, drawing a surge of Chinese language-backed funding into refining.

Jakarta hoped that management over nickel would underpin a completely home EV trade, from mining and batteries to completed automobiles. Specialists say that promise was used to justify forest clearing and mining expansion within the title of the power transition, whilst climate risks deepened.

In 2025, Indonesia cracked down on what it known as unlawful exploitation of pure sources, saying many mining and plantation licenses had been tainted by bribery or by no means correctly permitted. Authorities say they’ve seized greater than 4 million hectares (9.8 million acres) of mines, palm oil plantations and processing websites, levied $1.7 billion in fines, and will seize one other 4.5 million hectares this yr.

However analysts warn the crackdown is coming simply as nickel’s payoff is beginning to fade, with many Chinese language EVs shifting to battery chemistries that use far much less of the metallic, relying as a substitute on iron-based designs.

“The forests have been exploited to the brim,” mentioned Putra Adhiguna of the Jakarta-based Power Shift Institute. “However you by no means received the electric-vehicle worth chain.”

China performs the main position in Indonesia’s nickel sector, utilizing the metallic to underpin its stainless-steel and clean-energy industries.

The world’s largest nickel reserves are focused on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, which accounts for greater than half of world nickel mine manufacturing, in accordance with the U.S.-based Institute for Power Economics and Monetary Evaluation or IEEFA.

China has sourced nickel from Indonesia for many years, however the relationship deepened after Jakarta banned uncooked ore exports in 2020, drawing a surge of Chinese language funding into smelters.

Nickel shipments to China jumped, with imports of nickel matte — a semiprocessed materials utilized in battery chemical substances and alloys — rising almost 28-fold between 2020 and 2023, greater than 90% of it from Indonesia, in accordance with commerce information. Over the identical interval, North and South America’s mixed share of world nickel output fell from 16% to 7%, whereas Europe’s share dropped from 35% to 10%, in accordance with the Worldwide Nickel Examine Group, a Lisbon-based intergovernmental group.

In the meantime, mining drove the lack of about 370,000 hectares (roughly 914,000 acres) of Indonesian forests between 2001 and 2020 — greater than in another nation — in accordance with an evaluation by the World Sources Institute. Greater than a 3rd of that loss was old-growth rainforests which maintain huge carbon shares and are essential for limiting climate change.

The heavy use of coal to run Indonesia’s nickel smelters has additionally slowed the nation’s power transition, including new fossil-fuel demand even because it tries to chop emissions. A 2024 evaluation by the IEEFA discovered that main nickel producers emitted about 15 million metric tons (16.5 million U.S. tons) of greenhouse gases in 2023, largely due to coal reliance.

In one of the public nickel-related seizures final yr, Indonesian troopers accompanied by a neighborhood tv crew, took management of a part of the world’s largest nickel mine.

Principally owned by Chinese language metals big Tsingshan Holding Group, the mine has brought on deforestation, air and water air pollution and elevated coal-fired emissions, whereas displacing communities, harming livelihoods and exposing residents to well being dangers, in accordance with a 2024 report by the nonprofit group Local weather Rights Worldwide.

The transfer wasn’t geared toward environmental safety or restoring forestry safeguards, mentioned Bhima Yudhistira, with the Jakarta-based Middle of Financial and Legislation Research or CELIOS.

“There isn’t any assure issues will get higher,” he mentioned. They might get “even worse.”

Indonesia’s effort to show its nickel reserves into the spine of a home EV trade drew early curiosity from traders in South Korea and China however has fallen wanting expectations.

In July 2024, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group and LG Power Answer opened Indonesia’s first EV battery-cell plant, with annual capability to provide greater than 150,000 electrical autos. However in April 2025, LG Power Answer withdrew from a bigger $8.4 billion battery funding, citing market and funding circumstances.

An EV plant remains to be being constructed by Chinese language automaker BYD. China’s CATL, the world’s largest EV battery maker is setting up a battery manufacturing unit with Indonesian state companies.

Indonesia’s EV market, is rising shortly however stays small.

The nation offered greater than 43,000 electrical autos in 2024, accounting for about 5% of whole automobile gross sales, in accordance with the Indonesian Enterprise Council. Public charging infrastructure is restricted, with round 1,500 stations nationwide in 2024.

Even when Indonesia produced 1 million EVs a yr — equal to whole annual auto gross sales — and favored nickel-rich batteries, that might nonetheless eat lower than 1% of its nationwide nickel output, in accordance with the Power Shift Institute.

EV makers are shifting to lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries, decreasing the necessity for nickel and cobalt. LFP batteries are cheaper, extra steady and longer lasting. They’re utilized in almost half of all EVs, the Worldwide Power Company discovered.

Analysts say Indonesia’s nationalization drive may loosen Beijing’s grip on elements of the provision chain, probably giving Jakarta extra leverage to courtroom U.S. consumers and traders.

One potential concession by Indonesia in lengthy drawn-out commerce negotiations with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, anticipated to wrap up quickly, could be to elevate the ban on uncooked nickel exports to the U.S.

Indonesia already has invited the U.S. to put money into its crucial minerals sector as a part of ongoing tariff negotiations between the 2 international locations, although it is caught in a difficult place.

“How does Indonesia straddle between the 2 superpowers who each wish to achieve management of the nationwide useful resource that Indonesia has?” mentioned Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Coverage Institute’s China Local weather Hub.

Different Southeast Asian international locations equally “sandwiched” between the U.S. and China are watching Indonesia intently, Li mentioned.

“Make no mistake, it’s going to be very troublesome,” he mentioned.

Indonesia’s land seizures dangers additional destabilizing its nickel trade, added Yudhistira with CELIOS. Overseas traders monitoring the state of affairs are more likely to hesitate earlier than committing new capital to Indonesia-based mining and processing tasks, he mentioned.

“That is making the way forward for nickel, each mining and downstream processing, unknown,” Yudhistira mentioned. “Uncertainty could be very expensive for traders.”

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Delgado reported from Bangkok, Thailand. Related Press author Edna Tarigan in Jakarta contributed to this report.

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