Freeport makes changes to smelter plan

By Thomas Sembiring

Gold and copper giant PT Freeport Indonesia has made some changes to its planned copper smelter in Gresik, East Java, while Papua officials insist the project to be relocated to the province.

According to presentation material of the Directorate General of Mineral and Coal distributed to members of the House of Representatives Commission VII on mining and energy during a hearing session on Tuesday, PT Freeport last month revised downward the investment estimate for the planned smelter to US$2.16 billion from the previous estimate of $2.3 billion set under an earlier plan approved in May of last year.

PT Freeport, a subsidiary of US-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc, has also changed the type of technology from the initial plan of outotec double flash and converting to Mitsubishi continuous copper smelter and converting process.

The input capacity has also been upgraded to 2 million dry metric tons of copper concentrates per year from 1.6 million tpa.

Freeport, which operates the giant Grasberg mine in Papua, has been required by the government to develop domestic smelter as export of copper concentrates will no longer be allowed by the government in 2017. Progress of the project, however, has been very slow, currently reaching about 14 percent.

Meanwhile, Eltinus Omaleng, Regent of Mimika Regency in Papua, during the hearing session demanded Freeport to build the planned smelter in the province where the company?s mine is located. ?The smelter must be built in Papua, not in Gresik,? he said, adding that the local provincial and regency administrations also want to be involved in the supervision of PT Freeport?s operations.

He said that the Mimika regency administration has allocated 300 hectares of land for the planned project.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak