Ask who owns Indonesian mining and the honest answer is two structures stacked on top of each other. The first is Mining Industry Indonesia (MIND ID), the state-owned holding company that sits above the country's main miners. The second is a group of partially and wholly foreign-owned operators that run concessions and, increasingly, the processing plants attached to them.
The U.S. Geological Survey's Indonesia country profile — published by its National Minerals Information Center, with data through January 2026 — describes both in a single paragraph. That description, its production tables, and MIND ID's own disclosures are the basis of everything below. Every figure is attributed to the source it came from, and no company is given an attribute its own or an official source does not state.
The State Holding and Its Members
USGS names MIND ID as Indonesia's state-owned mining holding company. Its Structure of the Mineral Industry section lists the five mining and mineral-processing companies the holding consisted of, with a commodity attached to each: PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (bauxite and nickel), PT Freeport Indonesia (copper and gold), PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium — Inalum — (aluminum), PT Tambang Batubara Bukit Asam Tbk (coal) and PT Timah Tbk (tin).
MIND ID's own English site states the same membership, and its members page gives the equity it holds in each:
| Member | Commodity, per USGS | Stake stated by MIND ID |
|---|---|---|
| PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (Antam) | Bauxite and nickel | 65% |
| PT Bukit Asam Tbk | Coal | 65.93% |
| PT Freeport Indonesia | Copper and gold | 51.2% |
| PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) | Aluminum | Full ownership |
| PT Timah Tbk | Tin | 65% |
The holding's own commodity pages go wider than that list — they cover aluminium, bauxite, coal, copper, ferronickel, gold, nickel ore, and tin and solder tin — because several members produce more than one metal.
What Each Member Actually Produces
PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (Antam). MIND ID describes three business segments: nickel, gold and bauxite. In nickel, it manages a ferronickel smelter at Pomalaa in Southeast Sulawesi with a capacity of 27,000 tons of nickel in ferronickel per year. In gold, it operates a precious-metals processing and refinery plant that MIND ID calls the only gold refinery in Indonesia accredited on the London Bullion Market Association's Good Delivery List. In bauxite, it holds what MIND ID describes as the only alumina-grade chemical refinery in Indonesia. USGS classifies the company's output as mainly bauxite and nickel.
PT Freeport Indonesia. USGS records that it operates one of the world's top-producing copper-gold mines, in Papua Province. Its copper output rose to 816,000 tonnes in 2024 from 753,000 tonnes in 2023, which USGS attributes to higher mining and milling rates and ore grades improving to 1.27% copper from 1.22%. Gold production moved the other way, to 58 tonnes from 62 tonnes, on ore grades falling to 1.00 gram per tonne from 1.12 grams. The company completed its Manyar copper smelter in Gresik, East Java, with a capacity of 0.6 million tonnes per year, together with a precious-metals refinery, in 2024; USGS records that the smelter suspended operations after a fire during startup in October, with repairs scheduled for completion by mid-2025.
PT Bukit Asam Tbk. USGS places the company in coal. MIND ID describes several segments — coal mining, investment, mining services and a steam power plant — with coal the primary operating segment and the largest contributor to revenue, and the company developing downstream uses of its coal. Its members page states that as of 31 December 2018 total coal reserves were 3.25 billion tons and total coal resources 8.17 billion tons. That date matters: the figures are the company's own, and they are eight years old.
PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum). MIND ID calls it the sole producer of aluminum ingots in Indonesia, with a production capacity of up to 250,000 tons per year and a scope that also covers alumina production and a coke calcination plant. USGS puts national primary aluminium output at about 274,000 tonnes in 2024, up from 215,000 tonnes in 2023, and attributes the increase to Inalum's pot upgrading project; it adds that the company's products covered 46% of national aluminium consumption, which totalled 441,000 tonnes.
PT Timah Tbk. USGS records that the state-owned PT Timah was Indonesia's leading tin miner and the world's fourth-ranked tin refiner. In 2024 the company produced about 19,440 tonnes of mined tin (tin content), against 14,860 tonnes in 2023, and 18,920 tonnes of refined tin, against 15,340 tonnes. The national picture runs the other way: mined tin fell to an estimated 55,000 tonnes in 2024 from 67,600 tonnes, which USGS attributes mainly to the government's crackdown on unauthorized mining in the Bangka Belitung Islands. MIND ID describes the company as integrated from exploration through mining, processing, refining and marketing, and says it is developing ausmelt furnace technology for low-grade minerals and technology to process rare earth elements.
A Sixth Member: PT Vale Indonesia
One company stands on MIND ID's members page but not in the USGS list of five: PT Vale Indonesia Tbk. That is a difference of date rather than of fact. USGS's structure section describes the 2024 position, and in July that year the structure changed.
MIND ID's own release of 1 July 2024 says it completed the purchase of about 14% of PT Vale's divested shares from Vale Canada Limited and Sumitomo Metal Mining, taking its holding from 20.0% to about 34.0% and making it the largest shareholder. Vale Canada's stake fell from 44.4% to about 33.9% and Sumitomo's from 15.0% to about 11.5%. USGS records the same transaction.
The release links the divestment to a permit. It states the share divestment is part of the obligation attached to extending PT Vale's operational licence for ten years through the issuance of a Special Mining Licence (IUPK) valid until 28 December 2035, and that PT Vale received that IUPK on 3 May 2024.
MIND ID's corporate secretary, Heri Yusuf, is quoted in the release:
"[FAKTA] We shall optimize the downstreaming process of PT Vale's mining products to support the domestic industry in the country and export needs in reinforcing the downstreaming program."
He adds, in the same release, that the transaction "constitutes a momentum in strengthening the future of Indonesia's position in the battery and electric vehicle industry". MIND ID's members page describes PT Vale as operating nickel mines and processing plants at Sorowako, Morowali and Pomalaa and producing nickel matte.
The Foreign-Owned Operators
Foreign ownership in this sector is not a separate column from state ownership — it overlaps with it. USGS names four wholly or partially foreign-owned companies in Indonesia: PT Freeport Indonesia, PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt, PT Tsingshan Steel Indonesia and PT Vale Indonesia Tbk. Two of them, PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Vale, are also inside the state holding.
USGS splits them further. PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Vale Indonesia Tbk are the partially foreign-owned companies; PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt (cobalt and nickel) and PT Tsingshan Steel Indonesia (ferronickel), both described as Chinese companies, are wholly foreign-owned. In cobalt, USGS names PT Halmahera Persada Lygend and PT Huafei Nickel Cobalt as the leading operators, producing mixed hydroxide precipitate from limonite through high-pressure acid leaching. National mined cobalt rose to an estimated 35,000 tonnes in 2024 from 19,000 tonnes in 2023, which USGS attributes to continued ramping up at new facilities.
USGS names a second copper producer, PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara, without placing it in either the holding or the foreign-owned group. In its policy section it records that both PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara were granted licences to continue exporting copper concentrates through 2024 because their smelter construction was late.
The Rules the Structure Sits Inside
The legal framework for the sector is Law No. 4/2009 and its amendment Law No. 3/2020 on Mineral and Coal Mining, with the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources formulating and implementing mining policy.
Three policy decisions shape what the companies above are allowed to do. The nickel ore export ban came in 2020 and the bauxite ban in 2023, both to force domestic processing into existence — USGS records that all of Indonesia's estimated 9.9 million tonnes of 2024 bauxite output was consumed domestically. In nickel, the ministry was by 2024 considering a moratorium on new nickel pig iron and ferronickel smelter construction to control excess production. And in 2024 the government announced seven new locations where sea sand mining would be allowed, after lifting a sea sand export ban in 2023.
What the Sector Is Worth, in Sourced Numbers
USGS puts Indonesia's 2024 real GDP growth at 5.0% on a nominal GDP of $1.4 trillion. Mining and quarrying excluding mineral fuels contributed about 3% of GDP; base-metals manufacturing about 1%.
Indonesia was estimated to be the world's first-ranked producer of mined nickel in 2024, at 62% of global production; the second-ranked producer of mined tin, at 19%; the second-ranked producer of mined cobalt, at 12%; and the sixth-ranked producer of zeolites and of zirconium mineral concentrates.
On trade, Indonesia's total goods exports in 2024 were valued at $265 billion. Metallic ores, slag and ash were worth $8.2 billion, with China the leading recipient at 34%. Within mined metal and metal products, copper concentrates were worth $8.0 billion and nickel pig iron and ferronickel $14.1 billion. Total goods imports were $234 billion.
Production, first year of USGS's five-year table against the latest:
| Commodity | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Nickel ore, nickel content | 767,000 | 2,310,000e |
| Nickel pig iron, gross weight | 4,300,000e | 11,000,000e |
| Copper, mine, copper content | 500,000 | 996,000 |
| Bauxite, wet basis | 25,860,000 | 9,900,000e |
| Aluminium, primary metal | 245,000 | 274,230 |
| Tin, mine, tin content | 65,127 | 55,000e |
| Cobalt, mine, cobalt content | 1,100e | 35,000e |
| Gold, mine, gold content (kilograms) | 65,900 | 94,000e |
Metric tons unless stated; "e" marks USGS estimates. The table is USGS's, unabridged for these commodities.
What This Means for an Investor
- Ownership is layered, not binary. The state holding is majority shareholder in most of its members, but it does not hold all of them outright — Inalum is fully owned, Antam, Timah and Bukit Asam are held at 65%, 65.93% and 65% respectively, Freeport Indonesia at 51.2%, and PT Vale at 34%. The minority is where private and foreign capital sits.
- State ownership and foreign ownership can describe the same company. PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Vale Indonesia are both inside MIND ID and both classified by USGS as partially foreign-owned. A counterparty described as "the state company" may have a foreign shareholder registry next to it.
- The permit is the licence to operate, and it can carry an equity obligation. The Vale transaction is the worked example: an IUPK valid to 28 December 2035, granted in May 2024, with divestment as part of the price of the extension.
- Processing capacity, not ore, is the current policy target. Both bans were aimed at forcing plants into existence, and the ministry was weighing a moratorium on new nickel pig iron and ferronickel smelters — a project's processing route is therefore a policy question as much as an engineering one.
- The figures carry dates and units. USGS labels estimates with an "e", its production table is gross weight unless stated, and MIND ID's Bukit Asam reserve and resource numbers are as of 31 December 2018. Comparing any two numbers here without those labels is unsafe.
Catatan Teramine
This section is Teramine's editorial assessment, not a statement from USGS or MIND ID.
For a foreign reader, the most useful correction this dataset makes is to the idea that Indonesian mining has a state side and a private side. It does not. The two categories cut through the same three or four corporate names, and the state holding is the largest single shareholder in copper-gold, tin, aluminium, coal and — since July 2024 — the country's oldest nickel operation. That matters because permit, divestment and processing obligations all travel through those same entities.
The second thing worth naming is a documentation gap rather than a fact about the sector. USGS describes five companies inside MIND ID; MIND ID's members page presents six. Both are true of different dates, and the difference is traceable to a single announced transaction — but a reader who checks only one of the two sources will conclude the other is wrong. We have given both statements as they stand and reconciled nothing.
The backlog entry that produced this article asked for no revenue or output ranking, and that is the discipline here. None of these sources ranks Indonesian mining firms by size, so this article does not either, and the largest mining companies in Indonesia remain unranked by us for the ordinary reason that no source we read states such a ranking.
What we could not source and therefore did not state: current reserve figures in national totals, MIND ID's consolidated financials, any ownership percentage beyond those its own members page publishes, and any production figure for coal. That last gap is deliberate — this profile's trade and production sections cover metallic minerals, and quoting a coal output number from elsewhere would have broken the sourcing rule for the sake of a tidier list.
Sources
Figures, stakes and the quotation in this article come from the four sources below, which were opened and read for it. Where a statement is attributed to USGS or to MIND ID in the text, that is the source it came from.
Indonesian mining firms looking at the transactional side of this structure — assets, JV partners, acquisitions — are on the [mining marketplace](/en/marketplace). For permit, RKAB or IUPK work on an existing holding, see [mining permit services](/en/layanan-izin). The commodity detail behind this structure is in our pieces on [copper mining in Indonesia](/en/news/copper-mining-in-indonesia), [gold mining in Indonesia](/en/news/gold-mining-in-indonesia), [coal mining in Indonesia](/en/news/coal-mining-in-indonesia) and [nickel mining investment](/en/news/indonesia-nickel-mining-investment-2026).
