Antam begins pre-heating of new furnace at ferronickel plant
Tuesday, March 31 2015 - 01:10 AM WIB
IDX-listed mining company PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (Antam) said that it has started on Sunday pre-heating of its new furnace-4 at the Pomalaa ferronickel plant in Kolaka Regency, Southeast Sulawesi, paving the way for commissioning of the new facility in the middle of April.
Antam said in a statement obtained Tuesday that furnace-4 is expected to have a production rate of 4,600 tons of ferronickel in nickel (TNi) this year, increasing the company?s total ferronickel output to 20,400 TNi. The company expects sales volume of the commodity this year to reach 22,000 TNi.
Antam President Director Tato Miraza said that the entire expansion work at the Pomalaa ferronickel plant is expected to be completed in early fourth quarter of this year including a coal-fired power plant.
Once the expansion project is completed, it would increase Antam?s ferronickel production to 27,000-30,000 TNi per year, from 18,000-20,000 TNi previously.
In addition, the expansion and the use of more modern and efficient technology at furnace-4 would further strengthen Antam?s status as the world?s lowest cost producer of ferronickel, Tato explained.
Antam said that as of end of February of this year, the progress of the expansion project at the Pomalaa ferronickel plant has reached 86.9 percent.
The company said it has on May 23 signed a second investment credit facility worth US$60 million (part of the total $160 million) with Indonesian Eximbank.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak