Indonesia’s nickel ambitions face sustainability scrutiny after European giants’ exit
Environmental concerns over the country’s booming nickel sector have re-emerged, now that BASF and Eramet have pulled out of a multibillion-dollar project
[JAKARTA] Indonesia’s ambitious push in the global electric vehicle (EV) race faces significant hurdles, as calls for enhanced sustainability intensify in the booming nickel sector and its downstream activities.
This comes after Germany’s BASF and France’s Eramet recently ditched plans for a US$2.6 billion nickel-and-cobalt refinery project named Sonic Bay in Halmahera, a nickel-rich island in eastern Indonesia. The withdrawals have cast a spotlight on sustainability gaps in the supply chain of the world’s largest nickel producer.
Komaidi Notonegoro, executive director of the Jakarta-based ReforMiner Institute, said there are indications that Europe’s chemical and mining giants withdrew from the project due to tightened regulatory changes in the European Union, following new due-diligence regulations.
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