Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: If you drive an electric vehicle, chances are you're relying
Speaker 2: on nickel every time you get behind the wheel. The
Speaker 2: metal is a crucial ingredient in ev batteries, and these
Speaker 2: days a lot of that nickel comes from Indonesia, specifically
Speaker 2: the island of Sulawesi.
Speaker 3: So the island of Sulawesi is gigantic. It's in the
Speaker 3: eastern half of Indonesia. It's kind of shaped like a claw.
Speaker 3: It has several peninsulas that all shoot off from the
Speaker 3: central land mass, with amazing beaches, huge mountains, volcanoes. This
Speaker 3: pretty amazing place from a geographical perspective.
Speaker 2: Matt Campbell is Asia editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. He went
Speaker 2: to Sulawesi last winter because despite being rugged and remote,
Speaker 2: the island is now in a central role in the
Speaker 2: global economy.
Speaker 3: It is just about the most important place in the
Speaker 3: world for the nickel industry. There are huge nickel deposits
Speaker 3: in Silosi, and the nickel is being processed there. It's
Speaker 3: being refined into more usable form so that it can
Speaker 3: be put into, among other things, electric vehicle batteries.
Speaker 2: The nickel industry has brought rapid economic growth and tons
Speaker 2: of jobs to Indonesia, But according to reporting from Matt
Speaker 2: and his colleague Annie Lee, the processing of this nickel
Speaker 2: has real consequences for the workers in the factories and
Speaker 2: for the people who live nearby.
Speaker 3: We found evidence of really horrific industrial accidents that have
Speaker 3: been occurring repeatedly, over and over again for years now.
Speaker 2: Many of these incidents involved what's called slag, the waste
Speaker 2: leftover from smelting nickel.
Speaker 3: Almost anything you can think of it's happened. So people
Speaker 3: buried under landslides of slag, people falling into pools of
Speaker 3: molten slag which are incredibly hot and burning to death,
Speaker 3: people being run over by forklifts. Safety standards that would
Speaker 3: not be accepted anywhere in the developed world. And this
Speaker 3: is something that the ev industry, battery manufacturers, battery materials suppliers,
Speaker 3: and ultimately car companies have collectively turned a blind eye
Speaker 3: to and certainly not acted to stop.
Speaker 2: Welcome to The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: Janet Paskin. Every week we take you inside some of
Speaker 2: the world's biggest and most powerful economies and the markets,
Speaker 2: tycoons and businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today
Speaker 2: on the show The Dirty, dangerous and sometimes deadly Cost
Speaker 2: of the ev Revolution, Indonesia has far and away the
Speaker 2: world's largest nickel reserves. The Indonesian government has made it
Speaker 2: a national priority to develop the nickel industry.
Speaker 3: The big policy change was in twenty fourteen when the
Speaker 3: government actually banned the export of raw nickel ore so
Speaker 3: they said, if you want to mine Indonesia nickel, you
Speaker 3: have to do the smelting and refining here rather than overseas,
Speaker 3: because we want to generate employment. Since then, there have
Speaker 3: been things like tax incentives, help with infrastructure, help with security.
Speaker 2: Last year, Indonesia accounted for almost half of the world's
Speaker 2: nickel supply. By twenty thirty, it's estimated to reach two thirds.
Speaker 2: But all this success comes at a cost. We heard
Speaker 2: about the experience of one family who had a relative
Speaker 2: in the industry, from a woman named Nielu Novi Barniardi Rightia.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. My name is Nilu Novi Barniarti. I am
Speaker 1: twenty eight years old and I am a housewife.
Speaker 3: So Nilu nov Barney Arti is the sister of a
Speaker 3: young man named Imada Defriy Hari Jonathan, who was twenty
Speaker 3: years old. He was working as a trainee at a
Speaker 3: place called Gunbuster Nickel Industry, which is a large nickel
Speaker 3: smelting facility.
Speaker 2: Tell me just a little bit about Gunbuster.
Speaker 3: So Gunbuster is owned by a Chinese company called Jiangsu DeLong.
Speaker 3: They have set up this big industrial park. It's in
Speaker 3: a really a valley between a bunch of mountains with
Speaker 3: the water on the other side, and it just looks
Speaker 3: it looked like mortar from the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 3: When you go up and look at it, it is
Speaker 3: just this dark, smoky, dirty place. There's dust, there's pollution
Speaker 3: erupting from this verdant, green, tropical landscape. It's really astounding.
Speaker 2: Jonathan's sister told us that they knew working at Gunbuster
Speaker 2: could be dangerous.
Speaker 1: Yes, we knew the risk of working in a mine
Speaker 1: is higher than working in a village like here. When
Speaker 1: he went to work there, he was wont to avoid
Speaker 1: working in the furnace, and he was not assigned to
Speaker 1: the furnace. Our family relatives say he was very lucky
Speaker 1: to get assigned to the hoist crane because the location
Speaker 1: was nice with air conditioning and not in the furnaceku.
Speaker 2: His sister said, Jonathan was happy with his salary. He
Speaker 2: was making more than he had at a motorbike repair
Speaker 2: shop in the village, and he talked about wanting to
Speaker 2: build a house for their parents. But less than two
Speaker 2: months after Jonathan started working at Gunbuster, something went wrong.
Speaker 3: He was working in what's called a hoist crane, so
Speaker 3: if you can imagine a big industrial space, not a
Speaker 3: crane in the sense of a crane that builds a building,
Speaker 3: but a crane that is sort of on a railing,
Speaker 3: on the ceiling, and he was in the cab of
Speaker 3: this crane with a coworker, Nirwana cele who was actually
Speaker 3: a bit of a social media celebrity. She had a
Speaker 3: big following on TikTok with these cheerful videos about working
Speaker 3: in a nickel smelter, which a lot of people watched
Speaker 3: and a lot of people liked. And there was coal
Speaker 3: dust in this space where they were. Something a spark
Speaker 3: or something happened that caused the coal dust to catch fire.
Speaker 3: There was a really severe fire, and Jonathan and Nirwana
Speaker 3: were in the cab of this crane, could not escape
Speaker 3: and they burned to death.
Speaker 2: When you talked to Jonathan's family, how are they holding up?
Speaker 3: They were not as angry as I expected them to be. Actually,
Speaker 3: they were in this case resigned or fatalistic to some extent,
Speaker 3: in a this happened and it's nobody's fault kind of way.
Speaker 2: Gunbuster arranged to return Jonathan's body to his family. He
Speaker 2: was laid to rest on December twenty sixth, his mom's birthday.
Speaker 2: The company also gave the family money Jonathan's salary plus
Speaker 2: compensation for his death. In total, it was about thirteen
Speaker 2: million rupia or eight hundred twenty four US dollars for them.
Speaker 3: It is not a tiny amount of money. But Jonathan's
Speaker 3: father said to me that they haven't spent it, that
Speaker 3: they've just kept it in the bank because and I
Speaker 3: asked why, why couldn't you spend it? And he said,
Speaker 3: because the money is like Jonathan's body, How could we
Speaker 3: spend it.
Speaker 2: After Jonathan and Celley died, workers at Gunbuster held a
Speaker 2: one day strike to protest the conditions there. Protesters and
Speaker 2: security officers clashed during the demonstration, two workers were killed.
Speaker 2: In a statement, Gunbuster said that employee welfare is the
Speaker 2: company's utmost concern that it complies with safety rules and
Speaker 2: is seeking to improve conditions, but it also says that
Speaker 2: work accidents are a risk that can occur in various
Speaker 2: industries and work situations without exception. Trend Asia, a non
Speaker 2: governmental organization based in Jakarta, keeps track of deaths in
Speaker 2: Indonesia nickel facilities. From twenty fifteen to twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: the group recorded about eight fatalities a year on average.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three alone, there were at least seventeen
Speaker 2: A few hours drive from Gunbuster. At a massive nickel
Speaker 2: industrial complex called the Indonesia Morawali Industrial Park or IMMEIP,
Speaker 2: a group of Chinese and Indonesian workers were killed in
Speaker 2: an explosion in the early morning of last Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1: Thirteen people have died and dozens more are injured after
Speaker 1: an explosion at a nickel plant in Indonesia.
Speaker 2: The blast occurred early Saturday, but the fire was distinguished
Speaker 2: only on Sunday.
Speaker 3: Twenty one people dead thirteen Indonesians, eight Chinese, which even
Speaker 3: by the standards of industrial accidents in developing countries, is
Speaker 3: an astounding death toll and indicative that something went really
Speaker 3: horribly wrong.
Speaker 2: Representatives for IMMP, the industrial complex where the deadly explosion happened,
Speaker 2: said they are working on making improvements. In a statement
Speaker 2: on behalf of itself and its owner at Sinshan, Immip
Speaker 2: said quote safety is always our priority and that it
Speaker 2: quickly required all all enterprises to carry out safety risk
Speaker 2: screening and rectification after the accident. On top of the
Speaker 2: fatalities and the injuries to workers. Matt notes that nickel
Speaker 2: processing can also wreak havoc on the environment and create
Speaker 2: health hazards for local communities.
Speaker 3: So when you do go to these places, one of
Speaker 3: the first things you notice is air pollution of a
Speaker 3: kind I have not seen anywhere other than Beijing before
Speaker 3: things were cleaned up a bit there. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: a kind of pea soup haze that weirdly changes color
Speaker 3: through the day. There is also dust everywhere, which is
Speaker 3: from coal and from mind sights. I actually spoke to
Speaker 3: the medical clinic in the town next to Immip, and
Speaker 3: they talked about the alarming number of respiratory illnesses they see.
Speaker 2: Nickel industry managers say they're mitigating and compensating for their
Speaker 2: environmental impact. EMP, where the Christmas Eve explosion happened, said
Speaker 2: it monitors air pollution to ensure compliance with Indonesian rules.
Speaker 2: Immap's managing director told Matt and Annie that ultimately it's
Speaker 2: a simple.
Speaker 3: Question, as he put it, do you want to pay
Speaker 3: twice as much for a car? This all has a cost,
Speaker 3: and that cost gets fed through if you want to
Speaker 3: zoom out and make a bigger argument, is it better
Speaker 3: that the world gets onto EV's or not? And the
Speaker 3: world is only going to get onto EV's if they
Speaker 3: are affordable, So we need to make sure the nickel
Speaker 3: is as cheap as possible. You know, I think that's
Speaker 3: a totally legitimate argument. I'm not sure what the right answer.
Speaker 2: Is after the break, what do the big automakers have
Speaker 2: to say about the conditions in the nickel industry and
Speaker 2: is there a better way to get the nickel that
Speaker 2: EV's need. Bloomberg's Matt Campbell says that in most cases,
Speaker 2: auto manufacturers don't source battery materials directly. It's difficult, if
Speaker 2: not impossible, to trace the metal in any given car
Speaker 2: to any specific nickel facility. Our reporting indicates that car
Speaker 2: companies like Tesla, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Stilantis, and
Speaker 2: Toyota are probably relying on Indonesia nickel, or if they
Speaker 2: aren't yet, they will soon. Matt and his colleagues asked
Speaker 2: about ten major car companies to comment for this story.
Speaker 2: Tesla and Hundai didn't respond. Of the ones who did,
Speaker 2: most said they don't have direct relationships with IMEP, the
Speaker 2: major nickel supplier, but they do require or expect their
Speaker 2: suppliers to uphold standards around human rights and environmental concerns.
Speaker 3: When we are talking about supply chain relationships that go
Speaker 3: through five or six steps between the nickel mine and
Speaker 3: the battery, or six or seven steps between the nickel
Speaker 3: mine and the car, obviously, an ESG policy that gets
Speaker 3: formulated in the US or in Germany or Japan is
Speaker 3: probably not going to filter down that far.
Speaker 2: There are other places ev battery makers could source nickel.
Speaker 2: Australia and Canada have huge deposits, But in Indonesia labor
Speaker 2: is cheap and so is coal, so much so Matt says,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't make economic sense to look elsewhere.
Speaker 3: So actually, in Australia we've seen nickel minds literally shutting down,
Speaker 3: you know, in a country where a mine worker is
Speaker 3: easily making one hundred thousand dollars a year, they just
Speaker 3: are never going to be able to compete on costs
Speaker 3: with Indonesia. And in Tesla's sustainability Report, which they just
Speaker 3: published a new edition of a few weeks ago, there
Speaker 3: is a line in there that says, quite simply, the
Speaker 3: ev transition will not be possible by relying only on
Speaker 3: non Indonesian people in the electric vehicle industry. People who
Speaker 3: want to see the electric vehicle industry succeed have concluded
Speaker 3: that there's just no alternative.
Speaker 2: But there are other alternatives that don't use nickel at all.
Speaker 2: China's BYD uses lithium iron phosphate batteries in its cars.
Speaker 2: They don't get as much out of a charge, though,
Speaker 2: and Western carmakers have preferred nickel, especially in higher end vehicles. Overall,
Speaker 2: the nickel industry in Indonesia has helped deliver rapid growth
Speaker 2: to the country's economy and jobs to people in places
Speaker 2: that really need them. But those markers of progress do
Speaker 2: come at a cost. So I asked Matt about this
Speaker 2: very fraught tradeoff.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's futile to hope that car companies
Speaker 3: will demand higher standards and that those higher standards get
Speaker 3: enforced down the chain. There may indeed be a cost
Speaker 3: impacts act, and I think that's worth considering. And it's
Speaker 3: also worth considering whether things like government subsidies, tax credits, rebates, whatever,
Speaker 3: which are not unfamiliar with EVS can be deployed to
Speaker 3: make up for some of those cost impacts if needed.
Speaker 3: But also you need the Indonesian government to take more
Speaker 3: action here. They are the ones who have the power
Speaker 3: to regulate, who have the power to improve infrastructure. But
Speaker 3: where I get very anxious is the idea would be
Speaker 3: so much better if none of this had happened. Because
Speaker 3: these people need jobs, they need to eat, they need
Speaker 3: to send their kids to school. We just collectively have
Speaker 3: to find a way to allow them to do those
Speaker 3: things in better conditions and in jobs that don't risk
Speaker 3: getting them killed.
Speaker 2: Indonesia's Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said it diligently
Speaker 2: supervises safety at Nickelson's and is working to address health concerns.
Speaker 2: As for Jonathan's family, we asked his sister what she
Speaker 2: thought about Gunbuster's response. After he died in the fire
Speaker 2: at the plant.
Speaker 1: The company covered the medical costs and the autofc and
Speaker 1: repatriated the body and gave us eight hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: four US dollars. Who was I'm satisfied because they were
Speaker 1: willing to take the responsibility and did not wash the
Speaker 1: hands of the incident.
Speaker 2: This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: Janet Paskin. This episode was produced by Young Young, Naomi Ung,
Speaker 2: Jaska Beck, and Alex Sugiura. It was mixed and fact
Speaker 2: jacked by Alex. It was edited by Caitlin Kenney, Aaron Edwards,
Speaker 2: and Brett Reagan. Additional reporting was done by Annie Lee.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Eddie Dwan, Carmeli, Argana, Stella Coe, Angeline,
Speaker 2: Chuck yet Ying, and the Bloomberg Originals team. Our senior
Speaker 2: producers are Naomi Shaven and Kim Gittleson. Our senior editor
Speaker 2: is Elizabeth Ponza. Nicole Beemsterbower is our executive producer, and
Speaker 2: Sage Baumann is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Please follow and
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Speaker 2: It helps new listeners find the show. See you next time.