Bumi Resources Minerals to focus on Indonesia, selling overseas assets

IDX-listed PT Bumi Resources Minerals Tbk (BRMS) has diluted its ownership in the mining project in Liberia, West Africa to only 5 percent and divested its iron ore projects in Mauritania, West Africa) to the local partner, Rubis International Limited in line with its strategy to focus on Indonesian assets.

Such divestment and dilution resulted in the company booking a one time loss and write-off of around US$58 million in the 2013 financial year, the firm said in a statement.

"Such write off and loss were only booked as a one time transaction in nature and they were somewhat necessary to allow us to focus more on developing our Indonesian assets more efficiently going forward. Consequently, BRMS is no longer exposed to the risks of dealing with the uncertain regulations in the foreign countries," CEO Suseno Kramadibrata said, adding that despite such challenges, BRMS manages to retain a relatively healthy debt to equity ratio of 0.39x.

Suseno further said," Operationally, we have accomplished some notable progress in our projects throughout the year 2013:
? Signed strategic cooperation agreement with China Non Ferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering & Construction Co Ltd to develop and monetize the zinc & lead project in Dairi Prima Mineral (North Sumatera).
? Continue to develop the recently announced 292 million ton ore resources (0.47 g/t Au, 0.5% Cu) from Gorontalo Mineral's Cabang Kiri & Sungai Mak sites. Such development is intended to increase the copper & gold resources and reserves from the existing and new sites in the near future.
? Continue to develop and finalize the JORC resource and reserve estimates at the Citra Palu Mineral's Poboya gold prospect"

Furthermore, on March 25, 2014, PT Gorontalo Minerals (GM) and PT Nusantara Smelting (NS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which is related to the plan to discuss, prepare the terms & conditions, and to execute the Conditional Sales & Purchase agreement whereby GM plans to supply copper concentrates to a smelting & refining facility to be constructed by NS.

?This is a positive accomplishment by our Company. Such MoU would allow us to focus on the upstream business of the mining industry, while at the same time, we outsource the refining and smelting activities to an expert." Suseno explained.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon