Government may offer suspended mines to other investors

Petromindo|Lucky

The government may offer mines whose IUP mining business license has been revoked and their operations suspended to other investors via tender mechanism to help maintain production.

Director General of Mineral and Coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Bambang Gatot Ariyono said over the weekend that the decision to re-offer the mines to other investors will be made by both the central and provincial administrations.

He said that only mines located outside protected and conservation forest areas could be offered to investors, otherwise it will be assigned as state reserve areas managed by the government.

The government will revoke mines whose IUP licenses have yet to meet the so-called clean and clear (C&C) requirements by the end of this year. As per the first semester of this year, over 6,000 IUPs have obtained the C&C status, out of the more than 10,000 IUPs. The government since the past few years has been struggling to clean up the country?s messy mining sector as thousands of IUP licenses issued by the local governments in the past had often breached existing regulations including overlapping with other permits and protected forest areas. Miners whose concessions are overlapping with protected forest areas and those failing to pay financial obligations to the state properly, as well those which do not have the proper documentations are classified to be non-C&C.

The local governments have recently recommended another 1,352 IUPs to get the C&C status from the ministry, but Bambang said that around 800 IUPs do meet the set of requirements for the C&C status. (*)