Location
The PT Weda Bay Nickel mine is a recent development, with operations starting at the end of 2019. It is located on the island of Halmahera, the largest island in the North Moluccas province.
The PT Weda Bay Nickel deposit is one of the largest in the world, thanks to its size and the high average nickel content of its ore. Mineable reserves, according to the criteria of the independent organization JORC, are estimated at 2,800 Mth (million wet tonnes).
Capital links
The Indonesian company PT Weda Bay Nickel was created to develop the Weda Bay nickel deposit on the island of Halmahera in Indonesia. This company is 90% owned by Strand Minerals (Indonesia), and 10% by the Indonesian state-owned company, PT Antam Tbk, a company specializing in the exploration, mining, refining and distribution of mining products. In June 2017, a partnership agreement was signed with Chinese steel group Tsingshan, the world’s leading producer of stainless steel, to develop this mining asset. Eramet holds 43% of Strand’s shares and the Tsingshan group holds 57%. Eramet is a minority shareholder in PT Weda Bay Nickel.
Area
Halmahera is by far the largest island in the North Moluccas. It covers an area of 17,780 km², or 1,778,000 hectares.
Originally, PT Weda Bay Nickel’s concession covered 120,000 ha, and the company phased out two-thirds of this area.
Although the concession granted by the Indonesian authorities covers 45,000 hectares today, in reality less than one quarter will be mined: PT Weda Bay Nickel’s mining plan, approved by the authorities, provides for a total surface area of 6,000 hectares to be mined over a 25-year period.
In line with the life cycle of a mine (exploration, operation, rehabilitation, revegetation), only a fraction of these 6,000 hectares is actually mined each year.
Since 2019, around 2,000 hectares have been exploited. In line with the Indonesian government’s economic development plans, a large part of these areas was then used to set up processing plants, industrial annexes, employee housing and access roads.
Production
PT Weda Bay Nickel’s production reached 36.3 Mth of ore in 2023, representing 17% of world production.
PT Weda Bay Nickel is therefore a major player in the world, helping to meet growing needs, particularly in the manufacture of electric batteries.
Mastery of nickel mining and processing know-how will be a strategic challenge for industrial sovereignty in the future. Together with PT Weda Bay Nickel, Eramet demonstrates its technical expertise every day.
This expertise is also deployed in a sustainable approach to mining, for which WBN and Eramet aim to become the benchmark.
The PT Weda Bay Nickel plant produces a low-grade nickel ferroalloy (between 12% and 15% nickel content) that is directly marketable and has four RKEF (Rotary Kiln Electrical Furnace) production lines. The plant is located at the bottom of the mining concession, in the PT Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP), part of the Tsingshan Group, which operates the entire industrial park. The seafront industrial park is home to other companies with metallurgical plants (17 NPI[1] plants and one HPAL[2] plant by the end of 2023), an electricity producer (supplying the plants) and a port providing direct access for cargo ships.
[1] Nickel pig iron[2] High Pressure Acid Leach