The Philippine government will step up support for the local mining industry via exploration activities starting next year to identify more areas where critical minerals such as nickel and chromium can be extracted, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The agreement comes against a complicated auto and green steel backdrop.

But some steel industry observers think concerns might be overblown.

“Outages are going to be a blip on my radar because they’re planned. Eight planned outages are better than one unplanned [outage],” another distributor said.

Baosteel is looking to start up a hydrogen/natural-gas based DRI plant at its Zhanjiang facility in southern China.

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Top nickel producer Indonesia will not approve any new mining output quotas this year, government official Septian Hario Seto said, a move likely to further tighten supplies of nickel ore.