Indonesia proposes a green minerals partnership with Chile, with tailings on the agenda

Indonesia has put a structured minerals agenda on the table with one of the world's leading copper producers. On 1 October 2026, during a bilateral meeting in Santiago with Chile's Foreign Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna, Indonesian Deputy Foreign Minister Arif Havas Oegroseno proposed a Memorandum of Understanding on a Green Minerals Partnership between the two countries. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the Indonesia-Latin America and the Caribbean Business Mission (INA-LAC) 2026, and was reported by ANTARA on 5 October citing a statement from the Indonesian Embassy in Santiago.

According to the reports, Minister Pérez Mackenna welcomed the proposal and said he would follow it up at the first opportunity. For two countries whose economies draw substantial value from mineral resources, the proposal offers a shared framework to compare how each country measures, adds to, and retains the value of what it mines.

What the proposed partnership covers

The draft scope, as described by the Indonesian Embassy, has five elements: joint industrial projects, a coalition of producing countries, green mining technology, an investment platform, and an ocean-based distribution strategy. Around that core, Havas set out several concrete lines of cooperation.

The first is the battery and electric vehicle ecosystem. Havas encouraged cooperation involving Corporación Nacional del Cobre (Codelco), Chile's state-owned copper producer, together with PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (INALUM). ANTARA's English service reported that Codelco expressed openness to collaborating with Indonesia on research and technology.

The second is an "Indonesia-Chile Industrial Bridge" in the mining sector, involving INALUM, Freeport, Codelco, and the Chilean industrial company Elecmetal. The third, and the one most relevant to environmental performance, is cooperation on environmentally friendly management of mineral processing waste, or tailings, and on their further use.

The partnership would cover environmentally friendly management of mineral processing waste, including mine tailings, and their further utilisation. (Summary of the Indonesian Embassy statement, as reported by ANTARA)

Both sides also agreed to prioritise use of the Indonesia-Chile Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IC-CEPA) in the battery and vaccine sectors. Pérez Mackenna expressed interest in BioFarma's vaccine production capacity and possible procurement for Chile. Separately, the port authority of Puerto San Antonio is offering Indonesian companies opportunities to bid for container and clean bulk cargo terminal concessions, whose current concessions expire in 2029, as well as a port expansion project.

The numbers behind the relationship

The trade base is modest but growing steadily. Total bilateral trade between Indonesia and Chile reached US$535.51 million in 2025, an increase of 12.40 percent. Indonesian products that are gaining ground in the Chilean market include automotive goods, fertiliser, and footwear.

IC-CEPA provides the legal architecture. It was signed on 14 December 2017 and has been implemented since 10 August 2019. Under the agreement, 6,704 Indonesian products enter Chile with a zero percent import tariff. The decision to prioritise batteries within IC-CEPA signals that both governments see minerals and their downstream products as the next stage of the agreement.

The wider business mission set the context. ANTARA reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs brought 26 Indonesian companies to INA-LAC 2026 in Santiago on 1 and 2 October, producing confirmed agreements of US$328.98 million and potential transactions of US$344.08 million, up 10.8 percent and 21.2 percent respectively on 2025. Indonesian Chamber of Commerce chairman Anindya Bakrie proposed wider cooperation in energy and mining, with attention to downstream processing, electric vehicle ecosystems, nickel, lithium, and bauxite.

Two producer countries, two mineral profiles

Background data from the U.S. Geological Survey's Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 shows why the two countries complement each other. These are reference figures, not part of the Santiago announcement.

Chile is the world's largest copper miner. USGS estimates Chilean copper mine production at 5,300 thousand tonnes in 2025, out of a world total of about 23,000 thousand tonnes, with reserves of 180,000 thousand tonnes. Indonesia's estimated copper mine output for 2025 is 710 thousand tonnes, with reserves of 21,000 thousand tonnes. Chile is also a major lithium producer, at an estimated 56,000 tonnes in 2025 and reserves of 9.2 million tonnes.

Indonesia, for its part, leads the world in nickel. USGS estimates Indonesian nickel mine production at 2.6 million tonnes in 2025, against a world total of 3.9 million tonnes, and Indonesian reserves at 62 million tonnes. USGS notes that Indonesian output rose by an estimated 13 percent in 2025 as new operations ramped up.

Copper, nickel, lithium, and aluminium are the core inputs of electric vehicle batteries and power grids. A partnership that links Codelco's copper, INALUM's aluminium, Freeport's copper and gold, and Indonesia's nickel processing base covers much of the battery value chain between two producer countries.

Tailings as a valuation question

The inclusion of tailings in a foreign policy proposal is notable, and it reflects a shift in how producer countries think about mineral value. Tailings are the finely ground residue left after ore is processed. They are traditionally treated as a liability: a volume to be stored safely, monitored, and eventually closed. They are increasingly also understood as a potential secondary resource that may contain recoverable metals or be repurposed as construction material.

Chile offers a well-documented reference point. According to REDIMIN, citing the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) registry released in January 2025, Chile has 795 registered tailings deposits: 128 active, 12 under construction, 601 inactive, and 53 abandoned. Sernageomin classifies a deposit as inactive when it no longer receives tailings but has an identified responsible party, and as abandoned when no responsible party is recorded. The deposits are governed by Supreme Decree No. 248 on design, construction, operation, and closure, and by Law No. 20.551 on mine closure. The same report notes that some deposits may hold recoverable minerals, while stressing that viability depends on case-by-case technical, environmental, and economic assessment.

That last point is the heart of the matter. Whether a tailings deposit is a cost or an asset is a valuation question. It depends on the residual metal content, the cost of reprocessing, the reduction in long-term stability and water risk, and the land that can be returned to productive use after remediation.

Whether tailings are a liability or a secondary resource is not a matter of opinion. It is a figure that has to be measured, deposit by deposit.

Chile's fiscal framework offers a second comparison. Under Mining Royalty Act No. 21.591, published on 10 August 2023 with most provisions in force from 1 January 2024, copper operators selling 50,000 metric tons of fine copper or more pay an ad valorem tax of 1 percent of annual copper sales, plus a progressive operating margin component, within a maximum tax burden of 46.5 percent of adjusted taxable mining operating income, according to DLA Piper. The act also created a Regional Fund for Productivity and Development to finance regional governments and adjusted the Municipal Common Fund for regions that host mining deposits. This links the national value of copper to the regions where it is produced, a theme that also runs through Indonesia's own regional revenue sharing for mining.

Sirkularium's view

The Green Minerals Partnership proposal is a constructive step in Indonesia's minerals diplomacy. It moves the relationship with Chile beyond tariff lines toward joint industry, technology, and investment, and it gives both governments a structured channel to learn from each other's experience in adding value to mineral resources. Chile's prompt and positive response is a good basis for the next round of talks.

For Indonesian government and public institutions, three points stand out.

First, the tailings component deserves to be developed early, because it is where valuation work delivers the clearest return. A practical starting point would be a shared method to classify and value tailings deposits: mapping their extent with GIS and remote sensing, sampling for residual metal content, and estimating the avoided environmental cost and recovered land value of remediation. In Indonesia, the regulatory methodology in Permen LH No. 7 Tahun 2014 already provides a framework for pricing ecological damage, economic loss, and recovery cost. Applying it alongside resource recovery estimates would show where tailings reprocessing creates net value.

Second, a producer-country coalition is most effective when its members speak a common language of value. Comparable figures on production, reserves, downstream value added, fiscal take, and environmental condition allow partners to benchmark progress and present a credible case to investors and buyers seeking responsibly produced minerals.

Third, the Codelco, Freeport, and INALUM pairing gives the partnership a concrete industrial anchor. Joint research on green mining technology, including tailings reuse and water efficiency, can be framed from the outset with measurable indicators so that results can be reported transparently to both governments.

Sirkularium recommends that independently verified economic valuation of mining activity, combining GIS with ground data and standard methodology, be built into the partnership as ongoing practice. What to watch next: Chile's formal response to the draft MoU, the scope of any working group on tailings and green mining technology, and the first joint projects under the Indonesia-Chile Industrial Bridge.