Thirteen dead and 38 injured are the latest, still provisional, casualty figures following the explosion this Sunday morning in a nickel processing factory on the island of Sulawesi, in eastern Indonesia. The first elements of the investigation indicate that the explosion occurred during repair work on a blast furnace.
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It took firefighters several hours to put out the fire which spread quickly early this Sunday morning following the explosion of several oxygen tanks. According to investigators, the cause was a flammable liquid which caught fire during repair work on a blast furnace.
The victims included eight Indonesians and five Chinese, and of the 38 injured, half of whom were foreign workers, at least 17 were seriously injured.
The nickel processing plant located in the Morowali industrial park is a subsidiary of the world’s number 1 nickel producer, the Chinese group Tsingshan Holding Group.
China has invested heavily in recent years in nickel factories, especially in Indonesia, which is the world’s leading producer of this metal, which is essential for the manufacture of stainless steel, and which also constitutes a base metal, particularly in car batteries. electrical.
The International Energy Agency predicts an increase of at least 65% in demand for nickel by 2030. Jakarta, very rich in natural resources, hopes to meet 2/3 of the world’s nickel needs .
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