Nickel Faces Existential Moment With Half of Mines Unprofitable
- Chinese-backed output from Indonesia makes mines unprofitable
- Low-cost Indonesian nickel output is powered by polluting coal
This article is for subscribers only.
Many of the world’s biggest nickel mines are facing an increasingly bleak future as they wake up to an existential threat: a near limitless supply of low-cost metal from Indonesia.
With roughly half of all nickel operations unprofitable at recent prices, the bosses of the largest mining companies last week sounded a warning that there was little prospect of a recovery.