Anti Boncos! Indonesia Has The Opportunity To Become World's Electric Vehicle Battery Master

JAKARTA - Chairman of the Team for Acceleration of Electric Vehicle (EV battery) Projects, Agus Tjahajana Wirakusumah, said that Indonesia has 30 percent of the world's nickel reserves, which is the raw material for making electric car batteries. The figure mentioned by Agus is equivalent to 21 billion tonnes of crude nickel and is the largest controlled by a single country.

"We can become a global (battery) producer," he said when holding a meeting with Commission VII DPR-RI earlier this week.

It did not stop there, Agus also explained that several other natural resources which are commonly used in the manufacture of power storage tools are very abundant in the archipelago. For example, aluminum amounted to 1.2 billion tons, copper 51 billion tons, and manganese amounting to 43 billion tons.

For information, the development of battery production is in line with efforts to realize clean energy as mandated in Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 55 of 2019 concerning the acceleration of the electric motor vehicle program.

Furthermore, Agus also informed that the state-owned company (BUMN) engaged in the mining sector, namely Antam, has long been managing national nickel production. According to him, this is an important asset to be able to realize the ambition to form Indonesia Battery Holding in 2025 in order to pave the way to become a big player in the international battery market.

To note, Indonesia's annual nickel sulfate production reaches 50 thousand to 100 thousand tons per year. This amount exceeds domestic demand and has strategic value for sale to foreign markets.

"We are targeting to increase the output to 120 thousand to 240 thousand tons," he concluded.