Antam welcomes plan to relax mineral ore export ban
Thursday, September 8 2016 - 01:03 AM WIB
Antam President Director Tedy Badrujaman said in a statement Wednesday that while the company?s high grade nickel ores can be processed at its own smelters or other domestic smelters, the low grade nickel ores can?t be processed at home either due to economic consideration or technology.
He said that if the low grade nickel ores still have value overseas, and if it can be exported, it would provide additional revenue for Antam.
Antam has total nickel resources of 988.30 million wet metric tons, comprising of 580.20 million wmt of high grade nickel ores, and 408.10 million wmt of low grade nickel ores. The company said with the huge resources, it would be able to supply the requirement of domestic smelters.
The government introduced a policy in early 2014 to ban the export of mineral ores as mandated by the 2009 Mining Law to push miners to develop domestic smelters. The government at the time, however, exempted eight mineral concentrates including copper concentrates produced by giants such as PT Freeport Indonesia from the export ban policy, allowing it to continue export until January 2017, by which time they?re expected to have completed required domestic smelter. PT Freeport, however, is still far from completing its smelter project in East Java.
Interim Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Luhut Panjaitan said recently that the government has proposed to the House of Representatives to relax the export ban policy, allowing mining firms to export for another three or five years, giving them enough time to complete the required domestic smelter. Luhut said that the plan should be included in the ongoing revision of the 2009 Mining Law initiated by the House.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak