Nickel drops below US$16,000 as Indonesia plans production curbs
Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia put the global surplus at nearly 800,000 tonnes and called for tighter production quotas.
Indonesia plans to reduce nickel production quotas after heavy domestic output helped push global prices to around US$15,800 per tonne, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Bahlil Lahadalia said on 2 November 2026.
Speaking at the Minerba Convention & Exhibition 2026 at Jiexpo, Bahlil said global nickel demand stood at 3.5 million tonnes a year, while excess supply had reached nearly 800,000 tonnes. He attributed the price decline to Indonesian production exceeding what the market could absorb.
Bahlil directed the Directorate General of Minerals and Coal to manage supply and demand by cutting production allocations under the Work Plan and Budget, known as RKAB. He urged mining companies and industrial operators to restrain output.
He warned that continued price falls could allow other countries to buy Indonesian intermediate products cheaply, stockpile them and wait for prices to recover.
Separately, the Indonesian Nickel Industry Forum (FINI) reported that domestic processed nickel production reached 2.5 million tonnes in 2025. Chairman Arif Perdana Kusumah said national refining capacity stood at 2.7 million tonnes of nickel that year.
FINI estimated that processed output would fall by 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent in 2026 before rising again in 2027 as new projects add capacity. It projected national MHP production capacity would exceed 900,000 tonnes of nickel by the end of 2027, compared with 450,000 tonnes in 2025, with new HPAL projects focused on electric-vehicle battery materials.
