The first shipment of 13,677 tons of nickel and iron produced by Indonesia's Giant Dun Nickel Corporation (GNI) set sail from the southeastern province of Sulawesi for China at 6:00 am local time On Monday.
This is the first nickel and iron product produced by Giant Nickel since Indonesian President Joko Widodo attended the opening ceremony of the company on April 27. On the same day, Joko inspected the Chinese Delong Industrial Park where Geodun nickel is located, pressed the button marking the official operation of Geodun Nickel and signed his name on the commemorative plate of the first batch of nickel and iron products.
Located in Morowali Norte, Sulawesi Province, southeast Indonesia, Judun Nickel Industry is wholly invested and built by Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry Co., LTD., which is part of the third phase of Delong Industrial Park. It plans to build an annual output of 1.8 million tons of nickel iron production line, and is equipped with its own power plant, dock and other auxiliary facilities. Joko praised the project for adding value to Indonesia's industry, creating jobs and creating opportunities for micro, medium and small businesses. Joko said Geodun's smelter construction in Indonesia had greatly increased the added value of Indonesia's nickel industry. He says the value added is 14 times higher when nickel ore is turned into iron or 19 times higher when it is reprocessed into stainless steel.
Indonesia, which used to export only raw nickel ore, will export $20.8 billion worth of stainless steel in 2021 thanks to investment from Several Chinese companies. Joko called it "a huge leap forward" for Indonesia's economy.
Among them, delong Industrial Park, as a key project of The Belt and Road Cooperation between China and Indonesia and a national strategic project of Indonesia, began to be prepared in 2014. Now three phases of the Kendari Base and North Morowali Base have been completed, and 42 nickel-iron production lines, three power plants and three stainless steel billet production lines have been put into operation.
