Support Electric Battery Industry, Antam Nickel Reserves Enough For 30 Years

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Between)

JAKARTA - The Government of Indonesia is optimistic about the prospects of the electric vehicle battery industry as the trend of using fossil fuel vehicles is decreasing as people begin to switch to using environmentally recycling-friendly fuels, such as motorcycles and electric cars.

Electric Vehicle Battery Development Team Chairman Agus Tjahajana said PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) has nickel reserves that can last up to 30 years to support the business of the electric battery industry in Indonesia.

"Antam is the owner of nickel reserves that will be used and has been calculated to be able to up to 30 years," agus said quoted from Antara, Monday, May 24.

As is known, the government has officially announced the establishment of Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC) on March 26, 2021. IBC is a joint venture of four companies, namely Inalum, Antam, Pertamina, and PLN with a 25 percent shareholding each.

This red plate corporation will manage an integrated battery industry ecosystem from upstream to downstream to strengthen national energy and economic resilience.

"We hope all support IBC. It's our goal to get at least 30 billion U.S. dollars to contribute to Indonesia's gross domestic product," agus said.

In the domestic nickel mining industry, the amount of low-grade nickel ore and high-grade nickel are available quite a lot because indonesia's nickel reserves account for 24 percent of the world's total nickel reserves.

"Downstream management not only builds the mining industry upstream but we process it into batteries," agus said.

In 2021, antam mining company with an ANTM stock code budgeted a capital expenditure of Rp2.84 trillion with the largest portion for business development, one of which completed a ferronickel smelter project in East Halmahera.

The smelter construction project has reached 98 percent and is targeted to be completed this year in order to process 40,500 tons of nickel in the form of ferronickel.

Antam targets nickel ore production to reach 8.44 million metric tons by 2021, up almost one-fold from the realization of production throughout 2020 of 4.67 metric tons.