Sulawesi Mining Investment nickel pig iron smelter set to be complete 2014 | Sector data
(Insider Stories) – The first stage of Indonesian-Chinese joint venture PT Sulawesi Mining Investment’s US$1 billion nickel pig iron smelter in Central Sulawesi is expected to start operating by the end of 2014, after another company recently brought onstream Indonesia’s first nickel pig iron smelter under a new law that mandates that miners build domestic processing capacity and plans to ban exports of raw ore.
With a reported total investment of $320 million the first stage will produce 300,000 tons of nickel pig iron a year, mostly for export to China, while work on the $640-million second stage of the project is set to start in July and add another 500,000 tons of output, plus a 450 megawatt power plant, with the company expecting to eventually produce stainless steel.
The first stage is 30% complete, according to a trade ministry statement citing Alexander Barus, reports say. SMI is a joint venture company between resources company PT Bintang Delapan Group and Tsingshan Group. Reports say the plant will be one of the first nickel pig iron smelters outside China, Indonesia’s top customer for nickel laterite ore, with
The SMI plant will be among the first nickel pig iron smelters outside China, Indonesia’s top customer for nickel laterite ore. Jakarta-based PT Indoferro last year started Indonesia’s first nickel pig iron smelter last year and aims to produce a reported 250,000 tonnes of NPI this year, according to a report in Malaysia’s The Star newspaper.
