Government trims down export quota of AMNT to 149,000t

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources has issued last week export recommendation letter for PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (AMNT), formerly PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT), cutting down drastically the company?s export quota of copper concentrates by 64.5 percent to 149,000 tons.

The export recommendation letter is required by the company to obtain export permit from the Ministry of Trade. AMNT?s current six-month export permit, with export quota of 419,757 tons, is set to expire today (November 23).

Director General of Mineral and Coal at the ministry Bambang Gatot Ariyono was quoted by Bisnis Indonesia as saying Wednesday that the much lower export quota was made because the new permit will only be valid until January 12, 2017, not for a six-month period as what it had been in the past since 2014, because starting January 12 the government will no longer allow the export of mineral concentrates including copper concentrates as stipulated under Government Regulation No 1/2014.

Amman Mineral Internasional recently acquired 82.2 percent stake in in NNT and changed the latter?s name into AMNT.

The government is currently in the process of revising the regulation in a bid to ease the export ban policy, possibly allowing miners to continue exporting certain mineral concentrate products for the next three to five years during which time domestic smelters can be completed. (*)