Uranium Figures and the Nuclear Newcomer

In Bangka Belitung, land once excavated for tin has reappeared in a table, this time as a place said to contain uranium.

The word “potential” in that table is still a long way from a mine, let alone a power plant, and that distance is reflected in the resource classifications. The National Energy Council’s (DEN) 2025 National Energy Balance Analysis Report records Indonesia’s uranium resources at 89,483 tonnes.

The figure comes from 2021 data provided by the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), and the table divides the resources into several categories measured in tonnes of uranium oxide (U3O8). Only 5,234 tonnes are classified as measured.

Most of the total remains hypothetical or speculative, meaning it is still at the estimation stage. The same report translates the total into the equivalent of 1.88 billion tonnes of coal, based on a stated equivalence between uranium-235 and coal.

That comparison counts all the categories together, including those that are still speculative. The figure is not wrong. What is missing along the way is its status. For Indonesia, a newcomer to nuclear energy, losing sight of that status can be costly.

Three kinds of figures are being mixed in a single discussion: resources that have only been estimated, conditional policy targets, and construction schedules for sites that have yet to be confirmed. Each is legitimate, but each figure is appropriate only for uses consistent with its standing.

The target is set out in the government regulation on national energy policy, which stipulates a 0.4 to 0.5 per cent share for nuclear power in the primary energy mix by 2032, provided it is economically viable. That condition makes the figure a goal dependent on cost calculations, rather than a guarantee.

The schedule appears in the business plan of state-owned electricity company PLN. It lists the first two nuclear power plant (NPP) units as beginning operations in 2032 and 2033, with potential sites identified only at provincial level. The energy balance report does not include nuclear power in the electricity mix because no plant is yet in operation.

A media summary of a PLN presentation in September 2026 gives two dates that are difficult to reconcile. One concerns initial capacity in 2032, according to the general electricity plan’s projections. The other refers to NPP construction in the early to mid-2030s, according to the presentation’s timeline. The summary does not explain the discrepancy, for example by distinguishing between units or stages.

The term “pioneer” should also be understood in context. A policy study of small modular reactors in South-east Asia lists Indonesia among the pioneering countries, based on a 2018 study that cited a 2030–2035 target. That is a record of plans, not a measure of readiness.

The question of status is most pressing when it comes to fuel. The same regulation requires nuclear power use for NPPs to meet fuel-supply guarantees, and those guarantees are unlikely to arise simply from the tonnage underground.

A study of the European Union’s and the world’s dependence on Russian fuel services divides the global supply chain into uranium, conversion, enrichment and fabrication. It found that, based on global capacity in 2020, the largest single-country supplier share was in enrichment, and was far lower in uranium mining.

Downstream processing is relevant here too. The term is part of the title of Bahlil Lahadalia, Coordinating Minister for Downstreaming and Energy Transition and head of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM). In June 2025, he said Indonesia was open to nuclear cooperation with any country with which it already had a partnership, provided the arrangement was mutually beneficial.

That condition is reasonable, and applying it requires figures whose status is clear. Technology and fuel suppliers are likely to examine the resource classifications themselves. Indonesia would do better to state them first.

President Prabowo Subianto has long warned that selling natural resources in raw form, while the profits remain overseas, does not build the country. That warning is worth heeding, and nuclear power offers a chance to apply it from the outset.

In the global fuel chain, supply is most concentrated in enrichment, a stage far removed from mining. If the same pattern applies to Indonesia as a buyer, even measured resources would not automatically become wealth that circulates within the country.

A similar principle has long been familiar in Indonesian economics. Professor Sumitro Djojohadikusumo, an economist and former trade and finance minister, is known in the history of economics for supporting industrialisation through imports of capital goods and restrictions on exports of raw materials.

Copying that policy wholesale for nuclear power would make little sense, since every stage of the fuel cycle requires stringent safety, security and oversight. The question worth carrying over is which stages Indonesia intends to control, which it will contract out, and with whom.

Place names are also carried along by figures without clear status. The table identifies potential sectors in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, including Bangka Belitung and West Kalimantan. It describes resources, not the suitability of locations for power plants, and people in those areas have a right to understand the difference before promises are made on the basis of the figures.

The strongest argument for promoting the figures is that investors need large numbers, and a speculative label could deter interest. There is some truth in this: no one buys a small promise. But prospective suppliers and lenders are likely to scrutinise the resource classifications during due diligence, with or without the government’s help.

A small measured figure is more convincing than a large one that is later corrected by someone else. Clear status also shows a path to higher classifications, from speculative to measured, complete with locations and schedules.

The remedy is straightforward. DEN and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources can state the resource classification and data year whenever uranium and thorium figures are mentioned in the narrative and summaries of future editions of the national energy balance report.

One line for each figure would be enough: its classification, data year and source institution. Alongside that edition, ESDM and BRIN could publish a list of areas and investigation schedules showing how resource classifications there are to be upgraded.

Before the first NPP request for proposals is issued, PLN and the Coordinating Ministry for Downstreaming and Energy Transition could announce a map of the fuel supply chain. It should specify which stages will be contracted, where they will be sourced, and what guarantees will apply.

The figure of 89,483 tonnes will remain valid as potential resources. Turning them into fuel requires conversion, enrichment and fabrication, and each stage needs an owner, a schedule and a price. As a newcomer to nuclear energy, Indonesia need not wait for others to define the status of its figures.