Indonesia's state-led push to fill the nickel midstream gap
Indonesia's sovereign wealth fund Danantara is moving to develop 26 downstream projects worth roughly $12.4 billion announced in 2025, aimed at keeping more value inside the country rather than exporting raw or semi-processed minerals. The plan involves the state mining company MIND ID and a growing roster of domestic private firms positioned as co-owners rather than junior partners waiting on foreign capital to define the terms. The priority is the midstream segment between ore extraction and finished battery cells — including precursor materials, battery cathodes, specialty chemicals, recycling, process engineering, logistics and equipment maintenance — where Chinese investment over the past decade has built comparatively little capacity.
The gap is visible in trade flows. Indonesia is a net importer of advanced battery systems, with an estimated 85% to 95% of domestic demand met by imports as of 2026 and roughly 60% to 70% of that import value coming from China. The mismatch has been worsened by battery chemistry trends: of roughly 43,000 EVs sold in the most recent year tracked, about 90% ran on lithium iron phosphate batteries that use no nickel at all. BYD's new nickel-free Datang SUV drew 150,000 pre-orders in China in under two months this year, and ferronickel output has continued climbing to meet a market that increasingly does not need it for batteries, contributing to a collapse in prices even as export volumes hit records.
African Rainbow Minerals' $973M programme for platinum and nickel
South African miner African Rainbow Minerals has approved roughly R15.2 billion (US$927 million) to expand its Bokoni platinum group metals operation and an additional US$46 million to restart nickel production at the Nkomati mine. The Nkomati restart follows ARM's 2025 acquisition of full ownership of the asset, which has been on care and maintenance since 2021 amid low nickel prices and rising costs. A conditional off-take agreement has been signed with Swedish metals company Boliden, and Nkomati is expected to produce approximately 56,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate each year.
The Bokoni expansion includes a new 120,000-tonne-per-month concentrator alongside refurbishment of the existing 60,000-tonne-per-month plant, with commissioning targeted for 2030 and steady-state production of 350,000 to 400,000 ounces of PGMs annually by 2032. ARM suspended mining at Bokoni in mid-2025 after determining the mine's existing scale could not generate sustainable returns. The new programme is designed to position the operation as a larger, lower-cost producer competing in a changing global market that still relies on PGMs for emissions control systems and emerging hydrogen fuel cell applications.
Canada Nickel expands the Timmins district with maiden Nesbitt resource
Canada Nickel has published a maiden mineral resource estimate at the Nesbitt Nickel Sulphide Project in Ontario and a 46% increase in indicated resources at the nearby Deloro project. Nesbitt, located less than 3 km northwest of the Crawford project, contains indicated resources of 24.5 million tonnes at 0.23% nickel for 57,500 tonnes of contained metal and inferred resources of 152.1 million tonnes at 0.23% nickel for 351,000 tonnes, based on 10,031 metres of drilling across 28 holes completed between 2021 and 2026 using a 0.10% nickel cut-off.
At Deloro, 8 km south of Timmins, indicated resources now stand at 119 million tonnes at 0.25% nickel for 300,300 tonnes of contained metal and inferred resources at 498 million tonnes at 0.25% nickel for 1.25 million tonnes, incorporating 21 new holes totalling 8,468 metres completed since July 2024. Across nine properties in the Timmins Nickel District, Canada Nickel holds measured and indicated resources totalling 4.63 billion tonnes at 0.24% nickel for 10.3 million tonnes of contained metal and inferred resources of 5.70 billion tonnes at 0.23% nickel for 13.2 million tonnes. Seven additional targets remain untested, including three with geophysical signatures larger than Crawford, and the company plans to submit a technical report for both projects within 45 days ahead of further metallurgical testwork and a preliminary economic assessment through 2026.
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