[SMM analysis] Nickel exports from Sulawesi Province in southeastern Indonesia account for 80% of the total. China has imported a large number of Indonesian nickel mines in recent months.

SMM12, March 27: recently, according to Indonesian local media reports, 80% of Indonesia's exports from Surawesi Province, southeast of Sulawesi Tenggara (, come from nickel products. The Customs Office noted that from January to November 2019, exports from the south-eastern island of Sulawesi amounted to US $1.516.526.790, equivalent to 21.215.777.869.912 Indonesian guilders.

Bernhard Kendari Denny, director of the General Administration of Customs, said the nickel-related mining industry was the largest contributor to exports, accounting for 80 per cent, with the rest coming from fisheries and plantations. Mining products include nickel mines and ferronickel, while octopus, shrimp and crabs are caught or exported through cocoa plantations. Bernhard Kendari Denny points out that the income of ferronickel is greater than that of nickel ore, or even more than 100 times that of nickel ore.

According to SMM statistics, China imported 229000 tons of nickel and iron in November, an increase of 60200 tons, or 35.65 percent, over the previous month. Of this total, imports from Indonesia were about 187600 tons, an increase of 62400 tons over October and an increase of nearly 50 percent over the previous month. Indonesia imported 1.2392 million tons of nickel and iron from January to November 2019, up 125 per cent from the same period in January-November 2018.

China's nickel mine imports totaled 5.9948 million tons in November, down 858900 tons from October and 12.5 percent from the previous month. Of this total, imports from Indonesia totaled 3.338 million dry and wet tons, an increase of 7.4 percent over the previous month and 178.37 percent over the same period last year. As a result of the policy of banning mines in 2020, China has imported more than 3 million tons of Indonesian nickel ore since September, more than twice as much as in the same period of previous years. From January to November 2019, imports from Indonesian nickel mines totaled 22.1517 million dry and wet tons, an increase of 9.2196 million dry and wet tons, or 71.29 percent, over the same period in January and November 2018.

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