Launch of Indonesia nickel ore prices: pricing notice

Fastmarkets launched two new price assessments for Indonesia’s domestic trade in nickel ore on Tuesday July 15.

The two price assessments are for domestic trades of Indonesian laterite ores with 1.6% and 1.2% nickel content.

Indonesia now accounts for 60% of the global nickel supplies and while there is an official government reference price, known as the HPM for the trading of nickel ore, local market participants usually trade nickel ore at a premium to the HPM and without a third-party price assessment, it is hard to track price movements of the raw material in the country that dominates global nickel market.

The new price assessments will allow Fastmarkets to bring more transparency to the Indonesian nickel ore market. The laterite ore with 1.6% nickel content is a feedstock for nickel pig iron (NPI), while laterite ore with 1.2% nickel content is mainly used as raw material for the production of mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP).

Fastmarkets has been tracking the Indonesia nickel market since 2023.

The price specifications are as follows:

MB-NIO-0007 Indonesia laterite ore with 1.2% nickel content, domestic trade, delivered, $/tonne
Quality: Nickel ore 1.2% Ni, 30-35% Fe, moisture content 35%
Quantity: Min 50,000 tonnes
Location: delivered to main ports Indonesia
Unit: USD per tonne
Payment terms: LC, cash, other payment terms normalized
Publication: Twice a month on the 1st and 15th day at 7pm Jakarta time; if the day falls on a weekend, the price will be published the following Monday

MB-NIO-0008 Indonesia laterite ore with 1.6% nickel content, domestic trade, delivered, $/tonne
Quality: Nickel ore 1.6% Ni, 15-25% Fe, moisture content 35%
Quantity: Min 50,000 tonnes
Location: delivered to main ports Indonesia
Unit: USD per tonne
Payment terms: LC, cash, other payment terms normalized
Publication: Twice a month on the 1st and 15th day at 7pm Jakarta time; if the day falls on a weekend, the price will be published the following Monday

These prices will be part of the Fastmarkets base metals package.

To provide feedback on this proposal or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this price, please contact Dylan Duan, Laura Li by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Dylan Duan/Laura Li, re: Indonesia nickel ore.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to: https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology.