JAKARTA : Indonesia will check miners’ compliance with environmental rules and other regulations and “reexamine” production quotas for those found to be in breach, a senior mining official said on Friday, amid efforts to ensure the sustainability of its reserves.
Indonesia’s vast natural resources include copper, gold, tin and nickel, and miners are granted annual production quotas under a document known as an RKAB, which is valid for three years.
“The RKAB that has been issued will be reviewed, whether they (miners) are complying with the rules,” Tri Winarno, a senior official at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference.
Indonesia has emerged as one of the world’s biggest producers of nickel products following a 2020 ban on the export of raw nickel that triggered a massive expansion of its domestic processing industry.
In recent months, however, nickel smelters have complained about a shortage of ore, forcing some of them to import from the Philippines.
Tri said the government would review miners’ compliance with all regulations, including environmental rules.
Ensuring “longevity and sustainability” of Indonesia’s ore reserves is a government priority, Tri told the participants of the conference organised by media firm Petromindo. He declined to elaborate on how the planned review could impact production quotas.
In October, Bahlil Lahadalia, the mining minister, said the government planned to manage nickel ore supply and demand to support prices.
Indonesia’s imports of nickel ore surged to 9.3 million metric tons in the first 10 months of 2024, more than 50 times the imports in the same period last year, the statistics bureau said earlier this month.