On January 28th, the Indonesian mining company Ceria Nugraha Indotama (CNI) made its first direct export of nickel iron to China's Lianyungang from the Kendai New Port in Southeast Sulawesi, eliminating the need for transshipment or passing through intermediate ports.
This shipment consisted of 46 batches of nickel iron, approximately 1,015 tons in nickel metal equivalent, and is expected to arrive in China within 16 days, according to market sources.
The new direct shipping route reduces the secondary loading and unloading of goods, shortens logistics costs and reduces transportation time, which helps enhance the competitiveness of nickel iron in the Southeast Sulawesi region and strengthen the downstream value of the Indonesian nickel industry chain. At the same time, this direct shipping route is expected to improve the efficiency of the trade network and create more opportunities for global trade. Previously, due to the fact that goods from Southeast Sulawesi had to be unloaded at other ports before reaching the destination country, the time taken was longer and the operating costs were higher.
According to the news released by CNI on January 29th, CNI began nickel iron trial production in April 2025 and completed its first export in July of the same year. CNI's production capacity is 63,200 tons of green nickel per year, equivalent to 13,900 tons of nickel metal equivalent (22% nickel content).
CNI stated that it is currently building a second nickel iron plant and plans to build a high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) factory with an annual production capacity of 146,600 tons of mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), equivalent to 55,400 tons of nickel and 6,000 tons of cobalt.
