Controversies
Indonesia operations
Eramet has business interests in Halmahera island in Indonesia, where mining is threatening the survival of the uncontacted Togutil people, also known as the Hongana Manyawa. Eramet manages operations at the PT Weda Bay Nickel mine, the largest nickel mine in the world. Weda Bay Nickel has the largest mining concession on Halmahera island and more than three-quarters of that concession overlaps with the territories of uncontacted Hongana Manyawa people.
According to Survival International, there are around 3,500 Hongana Manyawa, and around 500 of them are uncontacted and refuse interactions with outsiders. In October 2023, a video was released that showed uncontacted Hongana Manyawa warning logging companies to stay away from their lands as bulldozers destroyed their forest. In June 2024, footage emerged of hungry members of the Hongana Manyawa asking miners at the Weda Bay Nickel mine for food after being forced off their lands.
In November 2025, a member of the Hongana Manyawa people of the Halmahera island led a protest outside Eramet's headquarters in Paris. Ngigoro, who was born uncontacted in the Indonesian rainforest, said he had travelled to France to confront French Eramet over the destruction of his people’s land. He told the Morning Star: “If they don’t stop the mining, my uncontacted relatives will die. The companies are getting rich from our deaths.”
Senegal operations
Eramet is also active in mineral sands mining in West Africa through its subsidiary Eramet Grande Côte, based in Senegal. Since 2014, this operation has extracted and processed heavy mineral sands along the Atlantic coast north of Dakar, producing zircon and titanium-bearing minerals such as ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene for export. The project has caused environmental degradation and community tensions, especially in the Grand Côte area.
