Domestic smelters hurt by rampant export of ores

The country?s smelters have been hurt by continuing export of mineral ores despite an export ban introduced by the government in early 2014, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Friday.

The paper quoted Jonatan Handojo, Head of the Indonesian Processing and Refining Companies Association, as saying that despite the export ban, illegal shipment of particularly nickel ores to China has been continuing.

He cited data from Chinese government that import of nickel ores from Indonesia in January-September period of this year reached 174,110 tons.

Although the import volume was lower than that in the same period of last year, the continuing export of the ores has created difficulties for domestic smelters to get raw material as many mines have been suspended amid the lingering commodity downturn.

Jonatan also suggested that the export ban has not been effective since its was introduced in January 2014 due to illegal export of particularly nickel ores, which reached 4.1 million tons during the year according to data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

Meanwhile, Chief Executive of Refined Bangka Tin, Petrus Tjandra also suspected there has been illegal export of tin ores, although he doesn?t have supporting data.

He suspected that the country?s tine ores had been illegally exported to Malaysia and Thailand as the two countries continue to be able to make tin export although they don?t have tin concessions.

In addition, he wondered why tin price remains under pressure despite government?s efforts to limit export from the country, the largest producer.

Jonatan called on the government to bolster supervision to prevent the illegal shipment of ores particularly nickel overseas as a number smelter projects are underway such as by PT Macika Mineral Industri and PT Bintang Smelter Indonesia. (*)