In Depth: How Indonesia Cornered the Nickel Market — and Itself

When Septian Hario Seto returned to Jakarta after a two-week trip to the United States late last year, one subject seemed unavoidable. He had been invited four or five times to closed-door discussions on critical minerals and their geopolitical significance, said Seto, a member of Indonesia’s National Economic Council, recalling the trip in a late-November interview. Critical minerals, he said, had become “an extremely hot topic.”