Opinion | Nickel, Not Just Missiles: The Critical Minerals Story Behind PM Modi’s Indonesia Visit

Indonesia holds the world’s largest nickel reserves and supplies more than half of global output, making it an obvious partner. The timing is what makes the opportunity unusual

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Jakarta on Monday to a fighter-jet escort and the pointed courtesy of President Prabowo Subianto, who received him at the airport in person. The headline from his state visit, which runs to July 8, was always going to be defence. Jakarta has reportedly asked New Delhi for a second BrahMos battery, in addition to the one contracted in March, and is seeking a favourable line of credit to pay for it.

A supersonic cruise missile is an easier story to tell than a smelter. Yet, as PM Modi sits down for formal talks on Tuesday, the more consequential agreements on the table concern something far less photogenic: the grey metal used in electric-vehicle batteries and stainless steel. India has not come to Jakarta chiefly to sell weapons. It has come to buy into the nickel supply chain.

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The Dependency India Can’t Drill Its Way Out Of

Nickel exposes an awkward gap in India’s clean-energy ambitions. The country imports the overwhelming majority of the material its battery and steel industries consume, and its domestic reserves are too thin to close that gap within any useful timeframe. More than 80 per cent of India’s ferronickel, the iron-nickel alloy on which stainless steel depends, already arrives from Indonesia. For the lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles, the reliance is effectively total: demand for battery-grade inputs is met almost........

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