October 24, 2026 | Critical minerals, industrial infrastructure and financing | Indonesia

Key points

• Nickel Industries expects coordinated production cuts at Morowali, but publicly verified volumes and duration remain unavailable.
• The company’s October furnace output was approximately 75% of nameplate capacity, demonstrating that installed equipment can exceed available infrastructure support.
• Its third-quarter realised nickel price exceeded reported furnace cash costs by US$1,354 per tonne of contained nickel, leaving limited protection against further deterioration.
• ENC’s signed US$245 million financing improves funding availability, subject to drawdown conditions; it cannot remove water-related operating constraints.
• Investment appraisal should test shared water-system failures, project-level debt service and customer delivery obligations alongside commodity-price assumptions.