A local unit of Rio Tinto has been given a mining permit for a nickel project in Indonesia worth USD 2 billion. The long-awaited permit is the first to be issued under a new Indonesian mining law passed in 2008 and could help increase certainty and lift flagging investments in the country’s mining sector. Rio Tinto launched an application for a mining contract of work, a type of mining licence under the previous mining law in 1999 for its nickel project on Sulawesi Island. But when the new coal and mining law was passed the firm was required to apply for a shorter term mining permit. The Sulawesi nickel project is expected to have a capacity of 46,000tns/yr of nickel metal. The government awarded the last contract of work to Australia’s Indo Mines Ltd for its pig iron project in November 2008 a month before the new mining law was passed in December.
