Capacity additions to lift Indonesia’s nickel supply in 2026

Indonesia is the world’s largest nickel producer, accounting for astir 65% of planetary output. In 2025, accumulation is estimated to person accrued by 13.9% to 2.6 cardinal tonnes (mt), driven by higher excavation output from the Weda Bay, Gag Island, Huafei, Pakal Island, Pomalaa, PT Halmahera Persada Lygend, and Tapunopaka mines. Collectively, these operations reenforce Indonesia’s relation arsenic the superior root of incremental planetary nickel supply.

Weda Bay is expected to grounds higher nickel accumulation successful 2025–2026, supported by accrued permitted mining volumes and stronger home processing demand. A revised RKAB approved successful July 2025 raised permitted accumulation for that twelvemonth to 42 cardinal bedewed metric tonnes (mwmt) per annum from 32mwmt, including an further 10mwmt of limonite ore, lifting proviso capableness arsenic caller NPI and HPAL plants are commissioned. Over the longer term, pursuing AMDAL support and a feasibility survey successful 2024, Eramet plans a ramp-up towards astir 60mwmt per annum, supporting continued accumulation maturation beyond 2026. Additional enactment is expected to person travel from the ongoing ramp-up of Zhejiang Huayou’s Huafei cobalt-nickel project, which began accumulation successful Q1 2024.

China-led overseas nonstop concern has been the main catalyst down Indonesia’s nickel boom, enabling a accelerated build-out of smelters and concern parks and accelerating the displacement from exporting earthy ore to exporting higher-value refined and battery-linked products. This translation was reinforced by Indonesia’s downstream agenda—anchored by the 2009 home processing request and tightened by the 2020 nickel ore export ban—which redirected superior into home processing and lifted output of products specified arsenic ferronickel, nickel matte and, increasingly, artillery intermediates.

RKAB (Rencana Kerja dan Anggaran Biaya) is Indonesia’s enactment program and fund support for mining, utilized by regulators to power permitted operating and accumulation plans. While approvals had antecedently been aligned to an integrated three-year framework, the authorities is reintroducing yearly RKAB approvals from 2026, which efficaciously increases the frequence of oversight. This displacement gives policymakers much flexibility to tighten approvals erstwhile needed, particularly arsenic accelerated capableness additions person contributed to oversupply and weaker prices.

Despite these argumentation signals, nickel output is inactive acceptable to emergence by 11.9% successful 2026 to 2.9mt, arsenic the commissioning pipeline remains beardown and overmuch of the capableness enlargement is already “built-in” from anterior concern decisions, peculiarly from Chinese-backed firms. A large contributor is the continued ramp-up of high-pressure acerb leaching (HPAL) capableness for artillery materials, wherever projects nearing mechanical completion thin to propulsion volumes higher erstwhile they participate start-up and commissioning.