Indonesia now has a commodity by commodity figure for how much of its mining output the state produces, and the measurement is the useful part

A weekend of numbers rather than slogans

Two pieces published on Sunday 20 September 2026 moved a long-running Indonesian conversation onto firmer ground. FORTUNE Indonesia set out, commodity by commodity, how much of national mining output is produced by companies under the state mining holding MIND ID. Tribunnews carried remarks from Irwandy Arif, Chairman of the Indonesian Mining Institute, on what would need to change for those shares to rise. Both drew on the same underlying material: a hearing at Commission XII of the House in mid September, and a national discussion on the implementation of Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution held at Universitas Paramadina earlier in the month.

The value of the weekend's coverage is that it replaced a familiar argument with a table. Indonesia has debated the balance between state and private participation in mining for decades, usually in general terms. It now has published percentages that anyone can check, argue with, or build policy on.

What the production share figures say

The figures reported by FORTUNE Indonesia are specific. PT Aneka Tambang Tbk accounts for about 0.83 percent of national gold production, against a national total of roughly 90,000 kilogrammes. In nickel ore, Antam's output of about 16.11 million tonnes represents 5.97 percent of the national figure. Bauxite is the commodity where the state producer sits highest among Antam's portfolio, at 28.28 percent. PT Bukit Asam Tbk accounts for 5.16 percent of national coal production, or about 43.1 million tonnes. In tin metal, PT Timah Tbk holds 47.51 percent.

Irwandy Arif put the tin figure in historical context, noting that state control of the commodity was once close to 100 percent and now sits near 48 percent. He also pointed to the reason he considers most important, which is that state mining companies have added very little in the way of new reserves.

"All the minerals and coal laws give priority to state enterprises. But the fact is this. What happened? The reserve additions from the state companies are almost nil. They are not obtaining new mines." Irwandy Arif, Chairman of the Indonesian Mining Institute.

His recommendation is a practical one. He asked that ministries and agencies help state mining companies gain access to new mining areas, on the reasoning that additional reserves are the precondition for additional production, and additional production is the precondition for a larger direct economic return to the state.

Members of Commission XII raised the same theme during their hearing in mid September, encouraging MIND ID to optimise its management of national resources and asking for an evaluation of where the holding stands. The framing across the House, the Indonesian Mining Institute and the sector press has been consistent: Indonesia wants more of the value of its resources retained at home, and it is now examining the mechanics of how that happens.

Why a small production share does not mean a small state take

There is an important distinction that the percentages alone do not carry, and it is worth stating plainly. The share of production held by state companies measures industrial participation. It does not measure how much revenue the state collects from the sector, because royalties, taxes and other levies apply to every producer, state owned or not.

On that second measure, the direction is clear. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources reported non-tax state revenue from the minerals and coal subsector of Rp108 trillion as at 31 August 2026, up from Rp87 trillion at the same point in 2025. Coal contributed Rp66 trillion, up from Rp59 trillion. Nickel contributed Rp21 trillion, up from Rp10 trillion a year earlier, a doubling that occurred while nickel production fell by roughly 13 million tonnes.

Director General of Minerals and Coal Tri Winarno described the approach behind that result as optimum production, in which volume is balanced against market demand, domestic obligations, price conditions, logistics and the sustainability of reserves. The nickel figure is the cleanest illustration available of what that approach produces. Less ore left the ground, and more value stayed with the state.

Set against this, the reference point Irwandy raised is a useful measure of ambition rather than a verdict. He has estimated Indonesia's mineral and coal wealth at approximately US$4 trillion while noting that state revenue from the sector in 2024 was around Rp173 trillion. Those two numbers are not directly comparable, since one is a stock of resources in the ground and the other is an annual flow. Read carefully, though, they frame the right question, which is how much of a very large stock Indonesia converts into value each year, and by what means.

The ledger that is still missing

Indonesia now measures the revenue side of mining with considerable precision. Production is counted, royalties are tracked, benchmark prices are set twice a month, and the state's non-tax take is published by commodity. That is a genuine administrative achievement, and it is the foundation everything else rests on.

The second ledger is thinner. The condition of land, water, forest and biodiversity in and around mining areas is recorded in permits, reclamation reports and monitoring returns, but it is rarely expressed in monetary terms that sit alongside the revenue figures. When that valuation is done it is usually done late, in response to a dispute, and under conditions that make it expensive and contested.

A country that can state its royalty take to the nearest trillion rupiah, but cannot state the value of the ecosystem condition beneath the same concession, is measuring only half of what it owns.

This matters for exactly the question the weekend's coverage raised. If the objective is that Indonesia captures more of the value of its resources, then the accounting has to cover the whole of that value. Reserve estimates and production shares describe the extractable part. Water regulation, soil stability, carbon storage, fisheries and standing forest describe a part that persists after extraction ends, and that has a measurable price under the methodology Indonesian regulation already recognises.

Sirkularium's view

For government and public institutions, three practical steps follow from the figures published this weekend.

The first is to keep publishing them. Commodity level production shares, updated annually and placed beside non-tax revenue by commodity, would let ministries, the House and regional governments track two distinct objectives without confusing them. Industrial participation and fiscal capture respond to different instruments, and they deserve separate lines.

The second is to treat reserve access for state mining companies as a data question before it is a policy question. Any allocation of new mining areas rests on the quality of the resource assessment behind it, and on a clear reading of the environmental and social conditions attached to the ground in question. Better geological and ecosystem data at the front end reduces the cost of every decision that follows.

The third is to build the second ledger deliberately. Economic valuation of mining activity, combining remote sensing and geographic information systems with ground measurement and applied through recognised methodology, gives a defensible figure for what land and ecosystem condition are worth at a given moment. Carried out as ongoing practice rather than crisis response, it lets operators demonstrate compliance to the Ministry of Environment with evidence rather than argument, and it lets government plan regional economies on measured natural capital rather than estimates.

Sirkularium's reading of the weekend is therefore optimistic. The production share figures are not a scoreboard to be won or lost. They are the first half of a national balance sheet that Indonesia is now close to being able to write in full. What to watch next is whether the next round of published figures adds the ecosystem side of that balance sheet, and whether the state mining companies seeking new reserves are asked to bring an economic valuation with them when they do.