Nickel is a key metal in electric vehicle manufacturing. Indonesia churns out half of the world’s nickel supply and has the world’s largest nickel reserves. About 60 percent of the deposits are in the remote island of Sulawesi in eastern Indonesia, which is historically marginalized and underdeveloped.
In 2020, Indonesia banned the export of nickel ore to promote the industrialization of towns. As a result, Sulawesi has become a flashpoint of environmental injustice.
On December 24, 2023, a flawed nickel furnace at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), an industrial compound that covers over 3,000 acres on Sulawesi, exploded, killing eight Chinese and 13 Indonesian workers. The incident underscored the poor safety regulations and hazardous conditions for workers at the industrial park, which has quickly become an essential cog in the clean energy transition.
However, job fairs advertising IMIP and other nickel mining operations in eastern Indonesia are still popping up in Chinese suburbs. Since 2015, an estimated 20,000 experienced Chinese factory workers have ventured to Indonesia. In the meantime, about 200,000 Indonesians have joined the “nickel rush,” becoming the country’s first-generation industrial workers. The migrating trend hasn't shown signs of slowing down.
