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Mines/Indonesia

Sorowako mine

Sorowako mine, Indonesia. Producing, open pit, mining nickel.

Why Sorowako is famous

PT Vale Indonesia's nickel mine at Sorowako, Sulawesi, producing nickel matte per USGS 2020-21.1,2

Story cards

Timeline

  1. January 2020Indonesia bans nickel ore exports3

What kind of deposit

Nickel laterite

Sorowako today

Where nickel is mined todayMining in Indonesia

Where next

Mines

An example ofWeda BayIndonesian nickel: PT Vale's Sorowako makes matte, Weda Bay runs a ferronickel smelter.1

Events

ExamplesIndonesia bans nickel ore exportsThe ban aimed to make miners sell to smelters in Indonesia, like PT Vale's matte at Sorowako.3

Places

Came out ofMorowaliFollow the region on to a modern operation: Sorowako.4

Deposit types

An example ofNickel lateriteSorowako belongs to the nickel laterite family of deposits.5

Sources

  1. Minerals Yearbook 2020-21, volume III: The Mineral Industry of Indonesia US Geological Survey
  2. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  3. The Mineral Industry of Indonesia in 2020-2021 US Geological Survey
  4. Wikidata item Q15815 (Morowali)
  5. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: Chiquicamata Mine, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); Escondida Mine, Chile, NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); Salar de Atacama, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).