Govt's approval on KPC divestment to be issued next week
Tuesday, June 21 2005 - 03:14 AM WIB
Director General of Geology and Mineral Resources at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Simon Felix Sembiring, said in Jakarta on Tuesday that his office was finalizing the assessment over the planned divestment.
"We hope we will be able to sign our approval next week," he told members of the Commission VII of the House of Representatives during a hearing. According to him, the sale of KPC's 32.4 percent shares had met all the requirements set by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in which PT Bumi Resources as the majority shareholder of the East Kalimantan-based coal producer had first offered the shares to the government before dealing with other buyer.
"Because the government refused the offer, the company then sold the shares to PT Sitrade," he said.
Bumi Resources took over the majority share of PT KPC from its former shareholders British and Australian mining giants BP and Rio Tinto two years ago. But the company was still asked to carry out the divestment of up to 51 percent of the coal producers' shares. According to the existing regulation, the mandatory divestment requirement is imposed only to foreign investors.
As 18.6 percent of the shares had been sold to the local government, Bumi Resources needs only to divest another 32.4 percent of the KPC shares in order to meet the mandatory divestment requirement.
About the planned divestment of Freeport Indonesia's 9.36 percent shares, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro, who also attended the hearing, said that the Finance Minister had not decided whether or not it would take the offer to buy the shares.
"If the government is not interested, the opportunity to buy Freeport shares will be given to state owned companies or private national companies," he said.
The House members during the hearing asked the government to pay a serious attention to the request of the Papua government to buy the shares that would be divested by Freeport. "State owned companies and the Papua should be given a priority to buy Freeport shares," said a statement issued as the conclusion of the meeting. (*)