The Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), situated in the Morowali province of Central Sulawesi, was established in response to the Indonesian Government’s decision to ban the exportation of unprocessed minerals (DSO ban) from January 2014.

In response to flagged legislative changes announced by the Indonesian Government in 2009, and well ahead of the DSO ban’s formal introduction in 2014, in mid-2013 Tsingshan group, the world’s largest stainless steel producer, committed to building a nickel processing facility in Indonesia to satisfy the indicated new framework for the treatment of Indonesia’s natural resources.  The 2009 Law on Mineral and Coal Mining (Law no.4, 2009) described certain minerals as national non-renewable resources, specifying that mining should be managed to encourage sustainable regional development, be for the benefit of national interests and pursuant to the welfare and prosperity of the Indonesian people with the Government actively encouraging and promoting the investment into and construction of smelting facilities to establish an in-country down-stream nickel processing industry.

The IMIP has fulfilled this vision and is now recognised as the world’s largest vertically integrated stainless steel production centre and the epicentre of global nickel production.  In recent years the park has expanded in size and now spans 5,500 hectares, is host to more than 50 partner companies and 90,000 employees with production capabilities in stainless steel, carbon steel, NPI, nickel matte, MHP and a range of other lithium and manganese products suitable for use in the electric vehicle battery supply chain.