Antam gets additional export quota

Petromindo

IDX-listed mining company PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (Antam) has obtained an additional export quota of 1.25 million tons of low grade nickel ores for the next 12 months.

Antam President Director Arie Prabowo Ariotedjo was quoted by Metrotvnews.com as saying Tuesday that the additional export quota was given by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources because the company is developing a new ferronickel smelter in Halmahera Timur, North Maluku Province.

Antam has previously obtained a permit valid until March 2018 for the export of a total of 2.7 million tons of low grade nickel ores and 870,000 tons of washed bauxite. Arie said that as per September of this, realized export volume entirled to China stood at 1.9 million tons.

The government introduced earlier this year new regulation allowing miners to export low grade nickel ores and washed bauxite on certain conditions including a requirement to develop domestic smelter.

Elsewhere, Arie said that Antam has backed down from an earlier plan to team up with gold and copper giant PT Freeport Indonesia and copper smelter company PT Smelting to develop an anode slime and precious metal refinery in East Jakarta due to price disagreement over the required anode slime raw material to be purchase from PT Smelting.

He said that PT Smelting had demanded for a higher price of the anode slime, making the proposed anode slime refinery to be not economically feasible.

Antam signed a MoU with the two companies to develop an anode slime and precious metal refinery with a capacity of 6,600 tons per year of anode slime.

Under the MoU, PT Freeport and PT Smelting will supply anode slime, a by-product of copper concentrates smelter, to the anode slime and precious metal refinery to be built by Antam. PT Freeport allocates about a third of its copper concentrates output to PT Smelting?s smelter in Gresik, East Java, to among produce copper cathode, the by-product of which is anode slime.

Meanwhile, rumors circulated that PT Freeport and PT Smelting have signed a new MoU with gold and copper mining firm PT Amman Mineral Nusantara to develop an anode slime refinery and precious metal project.

Arie described the move by PT Freeport and PT Smelting to be ?unethical.? (*)