NEWS - Antam's nickel ore sales jump on Indonesian smelting growth

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Vivian Teovivian.teo@fastmarkets.comJoint News Editor - Asia

Singapore 30/08/2016 - Domestic nickel ore sales by Indonesian state-owned miner PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) has jumped in the first half of this year as local demand for nickel ore grew on rising smelting capacity in the country.

Antam’s nickel ore sales were at 644,125 wet metric tonnes (wmt) in the first half of this year, a sharp increase from the 46,751 wmt it sold in the entire 2015, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Antam is “capturing the opportunity…in line with the growth of Indonesia’s nickel smelter industries and the domestic demand for nickel ore,” Antam’s president director, Tedy Badrujaman said.

Domestic processing capacity to produce nickel pig iron has climbed – notably by China’s largest stainless steel producer Tsingshan Holding - since Indonesia instilled an export ban on unprocessed ore in 2014.

Tsingshan currently has 900,000 tonnes per year (10-percent nickel content) of NPI production capacity in Indonesia, with another 600,000-700,000 tonnes-per-year of capacity set to hit full operations in the second half of next year.

Nornickel – formerly Norilsk Nickel – said on Monday that NPI production in Indonesia is expected to deliver over 80,000 tonnes of nickel units this year, beating market expectations.

While NPI production in China falls, ferronickel exports from Indonesia into China are surging.

Imports of ferronickel from Indonesia to China jumped by a factor of 5.5 to 74,493 tonnes in July, taking imports to 390,706 tonnes in January-July - a more than four-fold year-on-year rise.

Likewise, China's ferronickel imports rose 56 percent year-on-year to 92,240 tonnes in July, taking year-to-date imports to 557,208 tonnes, up 46.8 percent on the same 2015 period.

Antam said its vast nickel reserves and resources can meet demand from domestic nickel smelters as well as its own operations.

Its nickel reserves and resources amounted to 988.3 million wmt – 580.2 million wmt being high grade and 408.1 million wmt being low grade – as at end of last year.

Antam is targeting 20,000 tonnes of ferronickel production this year from its three ferronickel smelters in Pomalaa in southeast Sulawesi. It is aimming to lift production capacity by 50 percent to 27,000-30,000 tonnes per year of contained nickel (assuming nickel ore feed of 1.9 percent) this year.  

It is currently developing a 13,500 tonne per year (nickel contained) ferro-nickel smelter in Indonesia's East Halmahera in North Maluku which is expected to be completed in 2018.



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