Indosmelt teams up with Chinese consultant

PT Indosmelt has teamed up with a Chinese consultant to help realize its planned domestic copper smelter as the latter offers cheaper technology from China, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Friday.

Indosmelt previously hired a consultant from Australia.

Indosmelt President Director Natsir Mansyur said that the Chinese technology also has good quality. He said that by using the Chinese technology, investment requirement for the planned smelter could be cut down by half from the initial estimate of US$1.5 billion to around $750 million.

He expected the Chinese partner to be able to conclude a two-month feasibility study this month, so that ground-breaking for the smelter project could be made this year in the hope that it could be completed in 2017.

Indosmelt plans to build a copper smelter in Maros, South Sulawesi, with a capacity of 120,000 tons of copper cathode per year. The smelter will require copper concentrate supply of around 500,000 tons per year, expected to come from mining giant PT Freeport Indonesia, which has signed a conditional sales and purchase agreement with Indosmelt. (*)