Antam?s 9-month net earnings drops on decreasing sales, increasing costs

Publicly listed general mining company PT Antam Tbk (Antam) said on Tuesday its net income of the January-September period of 2002 had dropped by 60.57 percent to Rp122.7 billion (US$Rp8,900) from the Rp311.2 billion in the corresponding period of last year.

The company?s sales also dropped to Rp1.13 trillion in the January-September period of this year, from the Rp1.21 trillion from the same period of 2002.

The fall in Antam?s income was mainly due to the decrease in its sales and increasing production costs, corporate secretary Dohar Siregar said in a public expose meeting on Tuesday.

The company?s obligations fell to Rp642.69 billion by September 2002, from the Rp738.22 billion from the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, Dohar said that Antam?s ferronickel production capacity would double with the operation of the yet-to-be built ferronickel smelting plant in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi. The plant, FeNi-3, will be Antam?s third ferronickel plant.

Antam is in negotiation with a German lending consortium led by IKB Hermes on a loan of US$255 million to finance FeNi-3. Antam officials said earlier that final agreement on the loan was expected for early next year. They added state-owned Bank Mandiri had pledged a loan of $75 million for the project.

The construction of FeNi-3 requires between $350 million and $380 million, and the plant will have capacity to turn out 20,000 tons of ferronickel annually.

Dohar said the plant was expected to start operation late in 2005.

Antam, majority owned by the government, is listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange and Australian Stock Exchange. (robert/leo)