The Weda Bay Industrial Park is a

nickel mining A nickel mine is a mine that produces nickel. Some mines produce nickel primarily, while some mines produce nickel as a side-product of some other metal that has a higher concentration in the ore. Geology Nickel occurs in two general types of or ...

and

industrial park An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park, ...

complex in

Central Halmahera Regency Central Halmahera Regency ( id, Kabupaten Halmahera Tengah) is a regency (on Halmahera Island) in North Maluku Province, Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Ind ...

North Maluku North Maluku ( id, Maluku Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Halmahera Sea to the east, the Molucca Sea to the west, and the Seram Sea to the south. ...

, Indonesia. The Weda Bay Mine is now among the largest nickel mines in the world.

History

Nickel deposits were discovered in the Weda Bay area in Central Halmahera in 1996, and a joint venture between Canada-based Weda Bay Minerals and

Antam PT Aneka Tambang Tbk, colloquially known as Antam, is an Indonesian mining company. The company primarily produces gold and nickel, and is the largest producer of nickel in Indonesia. Until 2017, Antam was a directly state-owned company, before ...

(10%) was established in 1997. French mining group

Eramet Eramet is a French multinational mining and metallurgy company, listed on the Euronext Paris exchange under the symbol ERA. The company was founded with the funding of the Rothschild family (although they were careful to avoid being listed as fou ...

acquired the Canadian stake in 2006, and planned to develop the site, but due to low mineral prices the project was put on hold in 2013. In 2017, China's Tsingshan Group signed an agreement, giving it a 57% stake in Weda Bay Minerals, and giving Tsingshan the responsibility to develop mineral processing while Eramet retained its mining operations. Construction of the industrial park began in April 2018, with mining operations commencing in October 2019 and metallurgical production in April 2020. As of 2020, four nickel

ferroalloy Ferroalloy refers to various alloys of iron with a high proportion of one or more other elements such as manganese (Mn), aluminium (Al), or silicon (Si). They are used in the production of steels and alloys. The alloys impart distinctive qualitie ...

production lines are active in the industrial park, with undergoing development of a cobalt-nickel refining complex. A

nickel sulphate Nickel(II) sulfate, or just nickel sulfate, usually refers to the inorganic compound with the chemical formula, formula NiSO4(H2O)6. This highly soluble blue green coloured salt (chemistry), salt is a common source of the Ni2+ ion for electroplati ...

plant is also slated for construction in the park.

Workforce

The industrial park employed around 11,000 people as of 2020. In early 2022, the park reported that this figure has increased to 28,000 Indonesian and 1,800 foreign workers.

Mine

The Weda Mine was opened in October 2019 and is now the largest nickel mine in the world, with production from October through December of 2019 of half a million tonnes of nickel ore. It reported sales in 2021 of over 21 Mwt (million wet tonnes) from its mine. The ore is disseminated nickel as fine-grained manganese-nickel silicates in a laterite soil. The nickel is found as

garnierite Garnierite is a general name for a green nickel ore which is found in pockets and veins within weathered and serpentinized ultramafic rocks. It forms by lateritic weathering of ultramafic rocks and occurs in many nickel laterite deposits in the ...

as is associated with the iron minerals limonite, magnitite and goethite, as well as various clay minerals. The complex formed from the lateritic weathering of ultramafic rocks: serpentinite, dunite, and peridotite. The mine is a series of open pits, including the sites at Kao Rahai, Sake River, Sake West, Nuspera and Uni Uni.

References

External links

Corporate website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weda Bay Industrial Park Industrial parks in Indonesia Nickel mines in Indonesia North Maluku