Vale Indonesia (INCO) Concerns Amid the Euphoria of Nickel
BUMNINC.Com | The mineral mining company, PT Vale Indonesia Tbk., Assessed that the news of the potential of global electric car company Tesla to build an electric vehicle battery factory in Indonesia must be addressed with caution.
Vale Indonesia Finance Director Bernardus Irmanto said that the news that Tesla would build a factory and collaborate with domestic nickel miners made the Indonesian nickel industry even more attractive to pay attention to.
Based on Bloomberg data, at the close of trading Wednesday (11/18/2020), the price of nickel on the London stock exchange parked at the US $ 15,809 per ton, down 0.82 percent. However, during the last six months of trading, the nickel price has strengthened 33.09 percent, while year to date the price has increased by 12 percent.
This condition provides positive sentiment for nickel mining issuers in Indonesia. No exception, PT Vale Indonesia Tbk. (INCO)
The news must also be responded to positively but also with great care. According to Irmanto, on the one hand, this news is a great opportunity for Indonesia to take a strategic position in the field of electric car battery production or even the production of electric cars itself.
Indonesia also has the opportunity to optimize the utilization and utilization of nickel ore whose reserves are so large.
Moreover, the government has issued a regulation regarding the mineral reference price (HPM) of nickel for saprolite, and shortly it is hoped that HPM will be issued for limonite which can be processed in smelters with High-Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) technology.
Meanwhile, the HPAL technology smelter is used to produce intermediate products for Mix Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP) and Mix Sulphide Precipitate (MSP), which will be the forerunners of nickel sulfate or cobalt sulfate or the raw material for battery components.
“However, if the HPAL project that is currently being implemented can be completed and operated properly, I think there will be more HPAL investments in Indonesia,” said Irmanto.
Meanwhile, the issuer coded INCO shares plans to build an HPAL nickel smelter in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi, which is targeted for completion in 2025 with a total investment of around the US $ 2.5 billion.
Irmanto explained that the project investment value can change and it will be confirmed during the final investment decision (FID) which is targeted for the first quarter of 2021.
“However, on the other hand, issues of sustainability and good mining must be put forward in response to this good prospect,” said Irmanto to Bisnis, Wednesday (11/18/2020).
Meanwhile, Irmanto also provided notes related to the pipeline of nickel ore processing projects in Indonesia, which currently focuses more on producing ferronickel, but instead MHP and MSP products for electric vehicle batteries.
He said that the investment in HPAL technology factories tends to be capital intensive and environmentally more challenging than building FeNi and NPI smelter factories. []
