What Happens After a Mining License Is Granted? Inside Indonesia's First Resource Governance Assessment

Just over a year after public outcry over nickel mining in Raja Ampat led the Indonesian government to revoke four of the region’s five nickel mining permits, the issue is back in the spotlight. New research published by Greenpeace Indonesia in late July reported that three nickel mining licenses are in process for eastern Waigeo, Raja Ampat’s largest island. The one permit that was not revoked, held by state-owned PT Gag Nikel, resumed operations in September 2025.

The renewed debate comes as Indonesia’s mineral resources, particularly nickel, are becoming increasingly important to global energy transition supply chains and to the country’s own downstream industrial ambitions. It is a reminder that Indonesia's mineral governance challenge is no longer simply about writing better laws or improving how mining rights are awarded. It also raises a broader question: what happens after a license is granted? 

As NRGI argued in its commentary on the Raja Ampat case, the episode has exposed the gap between formal governance arrangements and their implementation in practice. Over the past two decades, Indonesia has introduced major regulatory reforms, digital licensing systems and stronger institutional frameworks for managing its mineral resources. But information about contracts, company ownership, compliance, government oversight and payments remains much harder for the public to access once mining is underway.

These questions formed part of the backdrop for the launch of Indonesia's Licensing and Taxation component of the Natural Resource Governance Institute's (NRGI) Resource Governance Assessment (RGA), in Jakarta on 5 August 2026. Developed in partnership with the Research Center for Politics and Government at Universitas Gadjah Mada (PolGov UGM), it is the first assessment published under the RGA; Chile, Senegal and Zambia will follow. 

The RGA succeeds NRGI’s Resource Governance Index (RGI), but rather than ranking countries, it examines individual countries in greater depth and combines a common set of core indicators with optional ones chosen to reflect national priorities.

Opening the event, Erica Westenberg, NRGI's Governance Program Director, emphasized that the assessment is intended as a starting point for policymakers, industry, civil society and researchers to discuss where governance systems work well and where they need to improve. 

Strong foundations, uneven transparency

Indonesia scores 52 out of 100 overall: 41 for licensing, 57 for taxation. But the detailed findings reveal a much more uneven picture.

Indonesia has substantially strengthened the administration of mining licenses. Digital platforms such as Minerba One Map Indonesia (MOMI), Minerba One Data Indonesia (MODI) and the Indonesia EITI Extractive Data Portal have expanded public access to concession and licensing information, and the country has established a comprehensive legal framework governing mining taxation and royalties. The assessment scores it 92 for pre-licensing processes and 100 for the rules governing taxation and royalties.

There are significant gaps elsewhere. Indonesia scores 33 for beneficial ownership disclosure and 0 for public access to mining contracts. Information on production, compliance, inspections, sanctions and license amendments is fragmented across institutions.

Taxation shows the same split. Indonesia has strong rules governing mining taxes and royalties, but public disclosure of company- and project-level payments remains limited. Payments to government score 58, while transparency around quasi-fiscal expenditures involving state-owned enterprises receives a score of 0.

Indonesia's taxation score is lower than the 84 it received in NRGI's 2017 Resource Governance Index, but the two are not directly comparable: the earlier RGI covered oil and gas as well as minerals and used a different methodology, with less ambitious criteria for good practice. The difference should not be read as evidence that Indonesia's taxation governance has deteriorated.

Indonesia's next phase of reform is less about creating new rules than implementing existing ones consistently and expanding public access to information.

What do the findings mean in practice?

At the launch, participants took the findings further.

Aryanto Nugroho, national coordinator of Publish What You Pay Indonesia, connected the findings to Indonesia's downstreaming agenda. While much of the policy debate focuses on downstreaming, he pointed out that it depends on what happens upstream, including how mining rights are governed.

Elvita Trisnawati researcher at the Indonesia Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) described what the findings mean for communities. Licensing procedures have become more transparent before permits are issued, she said, but once mining begins communities can still struggle to access information about compliance, environmental monitoring and government oversight.

Both point to the same issue. Without transparency after licenses are awarded, it is harder for communities to see how mining is governed or who benefits from it.

Where reform could focus next

Participants also challenged the assessment itself. Beneficial ownership was one area of debate, with some arguing that recent implementation efforts may not have been fully reflected in the findings, and questioning whether data collection had captured developments across relevant agencies.

The RGA is designed to invite this kind of debate. Its findings are an evidence base for governments, civil society, industry and researchers to examine and challenge, not a set of fixed conclusions.

Indonesia already has substantial digital infrastructure in place. Connecting MOMI, MODI and SIMBARA with beneficial ownership and revenue information would make it possible to follow the chain from license allocation and ownership through production, taxation and revenue collection, and would extend public accountability across the mining lifecycle.

The renewed attention to mining in Raja Ampat shows why implementation of the legal framework and public access to information matter. This first assessment sets out where Indonesia's mineral governance is strong and where it is not. Further components will examine revenue management, socio-environmental impacts and the energy transition.