RI ore ban may support nickel price: Norilsk
Friday, August 2 2013 - 12:45 AM WIB
Indonesia is the world?s top exporter of nickel laterite ore, which is mostly shipped to China to be used as a cheap substitute for nickel in stainless steel.
A strictly enforced ban on exports of ore would support demand for refined nickel, said Pavel Fedorov, deputy chief executive of Norilsk Nickel, who met government and industry officials in Jakarta to assess how the policy would be implemented.
?We received high-level assurances that there is a game plan in place that would ensure restriction on export of ore would be in place by January and would be subject to very strict rules and regulations? added Fedorov, who did not name the Indonesian officials he met.
Uncertainty over the policy was hindering investment and disrupting the nickel market, much of which believed the 2014 ban would be delayed ?or somehow fudged?, he added.
Indonesia?s nickel ore exports were 24.4 million tons in the five months to May, up 30 percent over the same period in 2012, as miners ramped up shipments ahead of the ban.
?Assuming that exports of Indonesian ore are restricted.., we will certainly see the potential for market stabilization at least to the levels we?ve seen in 2012,? Fedorov told Reuter in a report reprinted by The Jakarta Post.
Three-month nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) sunk to four-year lows this month, trading around US$13,900 a ton on Thursday, from above $21,000 a ton in early 2012, as China?s growth slows and stainless steel producers turn to cheaper exports from Indonesia and the Philippines.
The nickel industry has been pinning its hopes on a tough stance by Indonesia to curb exports, hut some analysts say a blanket ban is unlikely because it would make too big a dent in the country?s revenue. (*)