Freeport to rent Petrokimia?s land for smelter
Friday, January 23 2015 - 01:48 AM WIB
Newly-appointed President Director of PT Freeport, Maroef Sjamsoeddin said his company signed an MoU for the lease of 60 ha land for 20 years with Petrokimia on Thursday.
As such, he said that the planned smelter would be developed near the copper smelter of PT Smelting, in which PT Freeport has a 25 percent stake.
PT Freeport plans to develop a US$2.3 billion smelter with a production capacity of 500,000 tons of copper cathode per year, reportedly in cooperation with Japan?s Mitsubishi Corp, which is also a shareholder of PT Smelting. The smelter must be completed in 2017, when the government plans to start banning export of mineral concentrates.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sudirman Said earlier warned PT Freeport that its export permit risked be suspended if the company fails to show progress with the planned smelter project when the government begins to review the export permit and smelter project January 25. One indicators of progress is regarding land acquisition.
Meanwhile, Bisnis Indonesia daily quoted Sudirman Friday as saying that the government may be willing to extend PT Freeport?s export permit although the company has yet to complete the land acquisition for the planned smelter project if it could provide reasonable explanation. (*)