What John O’Grady’s famous book, aptly called They’re A Weird Mob, taught its readers through lashings of humour was that language and gestures meaning one thing in one language might not be understood by someone who speaks another language.

Examples from the book include the Australian worksite expressions “she’ll keep”, which only an Australian would know means don’t rush, or “have a cuppa”, with “a cup of what?” being the Italian reaction.

The reason cultural and language barriers are important to mining is that over the next few days several major Australian mining industries risk being disturbed by events in Indonesia that appear to mean one thing, but may mean something entirely different.

Nickel is the sector most exposed to interesting times developing in Jakarta because either it is going to enjoy a price boom, which is good news for Australian miners, or nickel is going to enjoy a short-term upward spike followed by a return to prices, leaving some producers operating at a loss after accounting for all costs.

What’s happening is that a threatened shutdown by the Indonesian government of mines which export unprocessed ore hits its deadline yesterday – January 12, 2014.

Known as a possibility for more than three years the ban on ore exports was seen by most miners, inside and outside Indonesia, as a furphy – and isn’t that another delightful Australian expression that needs a spot of explaining because no-one outside Australia knows that a furphy is slang for an improbable and highly embellished story generally told in a pub.

Dryblower doesn’t know whether Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia, has a furphy equivalent but the signals coming out of Jakarta are confusing because it seems that either the government is determined to enforce its ore export ban, or it may enforce parts of it, or even shelve it for a later day.

Until Friday the “smart money” (and that’s another expression not everyone understands) was on the law being quietly forgotten because of the potential damage to the country’s economy.

Prices for metals and minerals most likely to be affected by a ban, such as nickel, copper and bauxite, had barely moved despite the prospect of government inspectors ordering ships to not be loaded, or for ships already loaded to not sail.

Surely, went the argument in the “she’ll-be-right” camp, the Indonesian government would not “shoot itself in the foot” by banning exports which would earn it much-needed tax revenue in the hope that the company doing the exporting would invest in a mineral processing factory.

That may still be the case, but if the new policy is to be delayed then the government is playing a very tight game, so tight that on Friday in Europe there was a whiff of panic in the air as investors suddenly realised that for nickel at least the ban might be dinkum (explain that one to a non-Australian!).

Reports reaching metal traders in London, which might or might not be true, said that 10 Chinese ships part loaded (or getting ready to load) nickel ore had been prevented from leaving Indonesian ports.

A Hong Kong-based company, China Nickel Resources, complained that the ban would “dent” its profitability.

Whether the 10-ships delayed claim is true has not been confirmed with international wire services relying on reports carried in a Chinese newspaper called 21st Century Business Herald.

Truth, however, is not necessary when it comes to buying and selling futures contracts, or trading on the London Metal Exchange – where the price of nickel jumped by 3% as speculators rushed to close out short-sold positions which had been taken up in a belief that Indonesia was not dinkum when it came to banning ore exports.

What next?

It’s Dryblower’ best guess that after a few days of crisis, and short-term spike in the nickel price, sanity will return, especially after the Chinese government complains to the Indonesian government about unfriendly commercial decisions and anyone who knows Indonesian history knows that relations between the two countries can be very tricky.

Face-saving will become the order of the day. The Indonesians will say the ore-export industry has been warned. China will say thanks for letting our ships sail. Australian nickel miners will enjoy a week or so of higher prices, and the nickel-ore exporters will refresh promises to build processing facilities –and do nothing because they know that Indonesia government will back down again.