Southeast Asia has become an increasingly important part of the world’s mineral supply. The region produced 70% of global nickel, 29% of tin and 14% of cobalt in 2024. The transformation is most striking in nickel: Southeast Asia’s share has risen from just 27% in 2015, while Indonesia alone now produces more nickel than the rest of the world combined. Indonesia’s cobalt industry has emerged almost as quickly, largely as a by-product of the country’s enormous expansion in nickel processing. Indonesian nickel output reached an estimated 2.31 million tonnes in 2024, while cobalt rose from 19,000 to 35,000 tonnes in a single year.

Tin has moved in the opposite direction recently because two major Southeast Asian producers were simultaneously disrupted. Indonesia tightened oversight of illegal mining and experienced licensing and export delays, while production at Myanmar’s important Wa State mines was suspended. Indonesian mined tin fell from 67,600 tonnes in 2023 to 55,000 tonnes in 2024, while Myanmar’s production fell about 42%.

Bauxite’s decline is different: Indonesia banned bauxite exports in June 2023 as part of its push to process more material domestically, and mined output fell from around 30 million tonnes in 2022 to about 9.9 million tonnes in 2024.

Southeast Asia, and increasingly Indonesia, is becoming central to the availability of several industrial and energy-transition minerals. That creates new sourcing opportunities, but also greater exposure to changes in Indonesian industrial policy, mining regulation and processing capacity.