JAKARTA - PT Vale Indonesia Tbk (INCO) has asked for the support of Commission XII of the Indonesian House of Representatives regarding the addition of nickel ore production quotas throughout 2026 through a revision of the Work Plan and Budget (RKAB).
Vale President Director Bernardus Irmanto said that currently his party only received production approval in the RKAB of 30 percent of the volume submitted.
"What then became our request for support is related to the mining quota or ore production from our mines in Pomalaa, Bahodopi, and Sorowako," said Bernardus in a Hearing with Commission XII, Monday, January 19.
Bernardus said that his party had actually obtained the approval of the RKAB, but the amount of production volume approved by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) was not sufficient to meet the supply needs of the purification facilities or smelters owned.
"The quota given to Vale is about 30 percent of what we asked for, which may not be able to meet our commitments to factories," explained Bernardus.
For your information, in the development of the downstream project, Vale has partnered with a number of strategic partners.
For example, in the Pomaala project, Southeast Sulawesi, Vale partnered with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co. Ltd. (Huayou) and Ford Motor Co in the construction of a smelter.
Later, Vale will play a role as a nickel ore supplier to a hydrometallurgical smelter facility based on high pressure acid leach (HPAL).
Anto said that the mechanical completion projection would be carried out in August 2026.
Thus, the supply of ore for the smelter must be available before operational activities are carried out 3 months earlier.
"The annual needs of the Pomala HPAL plant with a capacity of 120,000 are 21 million tons of limonite.
The second project, he continued, is the Morowali IGP in Bahodopi which is worked with GEM Hong Kong International Co. Ltd and Ecopro from South Korea.
This project is expected to start operating in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The smelter's HPAL needs are 5.5 million tons of nickel saprolite and 10.4 million tons of nickel limonite per year.
"So to meet the 60 kiloton MHP, the capacity, it requires about 10.4 million limonite," he continued.
Not much different from Pomaala, the smelter in Bahodopi also requires a nickel ore supply of at least 3 months before it starts operating.
Finally, said Bernardus, the Sorowako Limonite IGP project which collaborates with Huayou.
However, this project has yet to find a suitable third partner and will only operate in 2027.
"This is also a joint venture between Vale and Huayou, although the partner who will later become the third partner is still under assessment. But this is probably the most delayed in this progress compared to Pomala and Bahodopi," said Bernardus.
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