Indonesia has issued an annual nickel ore output quota of around 240 million metric tons for the next three years, its Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Arifin Tasrif said on Friday.
The major producer of nickel ore starting this year has changed the validity of its mining quota document, known as RKAB, to three years, but it will still determine the mining volume for each year.
The change in system, however, had caused delays in approval process, forcing some smelters to import ores from the Philippines, sources said.
The quota issued should be enough, as nickel ore consumption last year was below this year’s quota, Arifin told reporters at a media briefing in Jakarta.
“Maybe those smelters are buying from miners whose RKABs are not approved yet,” he added.
(By Bernadette Christina Munthe and Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
