National resources issue and managing in Indonesia

JI-Jakarta. Indonesia plans to launch a carbon exchange in the second half of this year, its financial regulator said on Friday, as part of efforts to boost renewable energy use and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.

Southeast Asia’s largest economy is one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters and wants to cut its emissions by more than 30% by 2030.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry reported that the Indonesia Crude Price (ICP) was set at $79.34 per barrel in April 2023, up from $74.59 per barrel in March 2023.

According to the analysis of the Indonesian Crude Oil price team, the increase in ICP in April was impacted by OPEC+ policies, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry spokesperson Agung Pribadi.

Indonesian power utility PLN (Persero) has collaborated with Total Eren SA in the construction of a 70 MW wind power plant  project in Tanah Laut, South Kalimantan, Indonesia. This is also the first renewable project in Indonesia equipped with a 10 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) technology.

In the first year of operation, the Tanah Laut project is expected to produce a total of 158 GWh of electricity and increase to 196 GWh in the second year and so on. Total Eren said that the use of new and renewable energy will also contribute to reducing CO2e emissions by 220,000 tons per year.

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio asked the Biden administration to investigate Ford Motor Co’s (F.N) plan to partner with PT Vale Indonesia (INCO.JK) and China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt in a $4.5 billion nickel processing plant in Indonesia. Rubio, who is the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the venture threatens U.S. national security and asked the Justice, State, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security departments as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the plan.

Rubio’s letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited Huayou calling the project “one of the flagship projects under the Belt and Road Initiative” when Ford announced the deal in March. Rubio said the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is one of the primary mechanisms China “uses to spread its influence around the world and gain control of critical infrastructure and natural resources.”

The investment is Ford’s first in Indonesia and underscores growing appetite among automakers for raw materials used in producing electric vehicle (EV) batteries, which account for about 40% of a vehicle’s sticker price, aiming to cut costs and close the gap on EV market leader Tesla (TSLA.O). Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest nickel reserves, has been trying to develop downstream industries for the metal, ultimately aiming to produce batteries and electric vehicles.

House Commission VII plans to summon the government following its plan to relax the export license extension for PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) and PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (AMNT). House Commission VII member from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction Mulyanto said that his commission had not yet received an explanation from the government regarding the decision to extend the permits. Mulyanto added that the policy of extending copper concentrate export permits was considered discriminatory compared to other metal minerals.

Indonesia has cut tax incentives to limit investment in lower quality nickel products as it aims to extract as much value as possible from its rich nickel reserves and push for further downstream investment, a cabinet minister said.

The government is aiming for around $95 billion investment this year and will continue to focus on natural resources processing industries but wants to save its nickel reserves, the world’s largest, for higher valued products such as materials that go into electric vehicle batteries.

Illegal oil palm plantations spanning an area one and a half times the size of London have been amnestied under an Indonesian government program that critics say incentivizes large corporations over the small farmers whom it was intended to help.

A total of 237,511 hectares (586,902 acres) of plantations have effectively been legalized under the program, which began in 2020. There are a combined 3.37 million hectares (8.33 million acres) of oil palm plantations considered illegal under Indonesian law because they were established on land zoned as forest areas.

That’s an area larger than Belgium, accounting for a significant portion of the palm oil output in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the commodity. To address the problem, the government introduced the amnesty scheme through the so-called omnibus law on job creation in 2020.

The hugely controversial law, deemed unconstitutional in a court challenge yet somehow still in force, did away with criminal punishment for illegal plantations and their operators, and instead allowed them to be legalized by paying fines and applying for rezoning of the land to non-forest area.