A worker in a protective suit pokes a metal rod to tap slag from a smelting furnace at PT Vale Indonesia's nickel processing plant in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023.Indonesia has gone from supplying 7 per cent of the global supply of nickel to 55 per cent in the past decade, with much of that new production controlled by China-based mining companies with ties to the authoritarian Beijing government.
“It opens us up to situations where the market can in some ways be manipulated,” said Mr. Wilkinson. “That is not only an economic concern for countries like Australia and Canada, but it is a national-security concern for the United States, Europe, Canada, Japan, every Western country.” “As Western countries that share common values, we need to come to some kind of solution together,” he added.
Mr. Wilkinson said that the mine shutdowns that have played out in Australia will “eventually come to Canada.” China and Indonesia’s rise in nickel production has come at a great environmental cost. Already one of the dirtiest industries, steel produced using low-grade Indonesian nickel, known as nickel pig iron, or NPI, is highly carbon intensive thanks in part to the reliance on thermal coal for power in China and Indonesia. In addition, the processing of NPI for use in the EV industry, including the use of metallurgical coal, adds greatly to emissions.
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