Antam to team up with foreign investors

State owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) will team up with foreign investors in building a ferronickel smelting plant and its supporting facilities such as power plants in East Halmahera, North Maluku after state owned electricity PLN withdraws from the project, Kontan reported on Saturday.

Antam?s finance director Djaya Tambunan said that Antam would invite foreign companies from Germany, South Korea, Austria and Japan to develop the US$1.6 billion smelting and power plant project.

He said that PLN initially agreed to build two power plants ? a coal-fired power plant with a capacity of 3 x 30 megawatt (MW) and a diesel power plant with a capacity of 10 x 7 MW ? for the smelting project. But the electricity company later pulled out from the project due to disagreement in prices.

Djaya said Antam would need about $1 billion for the construction of the smelter and another $600 million for the power plant.

Meanwhile, Antam?s president director Alwin Syah Lubis told The Jakarta Post that the company was also looking for $650 million in bank loans to finance part of the construction of a smelter-grade alumina (SGA) plant in Mempawah, West Kalimantan.He said that Antam and its Chinese partner Hangzhou Jinjiang would need at least $1 billion to finance the project, 65 percent of which would be funded externally, while 35 percent would come from internal funds.

Alwin said the smelter would produce 1.2 million tons of alumina a year when complete.

Antam controls a 55 percent stake in the smelter project while Hangzhou holds 45 percent.(*)