INDONESIA’S RARE EARTH ELEMENTS LIE IN TIN MINE TAILINGS

Rare earth, the experts like to say, is neither rare nor is it earth. But given its use in everything from smartphones to high-tech aerospace and defense systems, a potential buried treasure from the past may soon become the next big thing in Indonesian mining, John McBeth reported for Asia Times on September 9, 2020. 

Indonesia appears to have only modest proven amounts of the valuable minerals, but much of what it does have is locked away in the rock waste, or tailings, left over from centuries of tin mining on the islands of Bangka and Belitung, south of Singapore. 

Although preliminary studies show state-owned PT Tambang Timah’s tin sands contain 13 of the 17 chemical elements in the periodic table present in rare earths, it will take further investigation to determine whether it is present in commercial quantities. Rare earths also occur in Aceh, Jambi and Riau’s Singkep Island and in West Kalimantan, where they are associated with rich deposits of bauxite, the feedstock for a $695 million alumina smelter the Chinese are building north of Pontianak, the province capital. 

If it is, that would make Indonesia a player in an industry that is fast becoming a new trade war flashpoint between the United States and China because of its strategic significance for numerous civilian and military technologies, including both laser and precision-guided missiles. China currently controls 80% of the world’s trade in rare earths and could conceivably block US access in retaliation for any future Washington sanctions on Chinese-made goods. Laboratory results indicate Timah’s tailings contain significant quantities of neodymium and praseodymium, which in combination with iron and boron are used to produce high-power magnets for electric motors and military guidance and control systems. Indonesia already possesses 80% of the minerals, rare earths included, needed to manufacture lithium batteries, part of the government’s policy of venturing into electric vehicles as a way of creating a future industrial base built around its vast natural resources.

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