Indonesian Investors Dig Deeper Into Australian Mining
10 Jul 2024
Australian copper has been added to
the shopping list of wealthy Indonesian families already active in Australian
coal.
Mach Metals,
an arm of the Jakarta-based Salim Group, agreed on Monday to pay $265 million
for Rex Minerals which owns the big but undeveloped Hillside copper project in
South Australia.
Best known
for its investments in food production and distribution, Salim is also becoming
increasingly interested in energy transition opportunities with copper a key
commodity in the batteries of electric vehicles.
to the Mt Pleasant
coal mine which Salim acquired from the big British-based miner Rio Tinto in
2017 for $220 million.
The Widjaja
family has also been actively acquiring Australian coal assets through its
control of Australian-listed Stanmore Coal, as have the Tohir and Soeryadjaya
families through their Adaro Energy which has an interest in Queensland's
Kestrel coal mine.
The deal by Salim Group to buy Rex
could be signalling an expansion of Indonesian interest in Australian mining
especially as Indonesia moves deeper into value-added manufacturing and a need
to source additional supplies of raw materials.