Indonesia’s miners pivot to cheaper calcium nitrate as ammonium nitrate shortage bites
Friday, July 11 2025 - 02:46 PM WIB
By Rikordias Siahaan
Indonesian mining contractors have begun blending calcium nitrate (CN) into their bulk emulsion explosives to cut dependence on scarce and increasingly costly ammonium nitrate (AN), executives told the Indonesian Blasting Engineers Society Annual Conference this week.
Hanwha Mining Services and its customer PT PAMA Persada Nusantara said laboratory and field trials at the ABB coal mine in Central Kalimantan replaced 50 % of AN with CN without degrading blast quality. “We can slash AN usage by half and still hit the same fragmentation and digging targets,” technical manager Rais Husin told delegates.
Supply concerns have driven the shift. Indonesia imported about 11 % of its AN requirement in 2023 as local producers struggled to keep up with demand, pushing prices higher, Hanwha’s data showed.
Calcium nitrate, classified as a fertiliser rather than an explosive precursor, is cheaper and easier to move and store. Parent firm Omnia Group already operates a CN plant in Southeast Asia, giving Indonesian customers “round-the-clock distribution” and simpler permits, the company said.
Read also : DNX targets higher ammonium nitrate sales in 2025
Executives added that CN’s price is “far lower than AN” in regional markets.
After six months of on-bench trials, PAMA reported no significant change in fragmentation, dig-cycle times or vibration levels, and blast‐hole sleep tests showed emulsions remained stable for up to 30 days.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) granted a technical permit in early 2025 for full-scale CN deployment at ABB, and PAMA said it is now rolling the dual-salt formulation to other sites under the same licence.
While dual-salt emulsions have long been used in South Africa, Europe and the United States, Indonesian mines are only now adopting the technology. Hanwha and Omnia are already developing “triple-salt” blends that could push AN substitution beyond 50 %, Rais added, calling the programme “a hedge against future AN volatility.”
Industry analysts say widespread uptake could ease Indonesia’s exposure to AN import disruptions while marginally lowering blasting costs across the archipelago’s coal and metal pits.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak