Kazakhstan signs economic, technology cooperation with West Nusa Tenggara
Monday, June 5 2000 - 02:30 AM WIB
The mineral-rich West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) province signed last week an economic and technology cooperation with the oil and gas-rich Kazakhstan, the Jawa Post daily reported.
The cooperation agreement was signed by Kazakhstan's mining deputy minister Uzhkenov, and the local head of the development planning agency (Bappeda) Nanang Samodra.
Uzhkenov, accompanied by managing director of Australia-based Kiintas Geology Pty. Ltd Waldemar K. Mueller, had been in NTB for a week and had visited the gold and copper mining operation of PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT).
Jawa Post said that it's NNT played an important role in realizing the agreement between Kazakhstan and NTB.
NNT deputy president commissioner Yusuf Merukh said that Kazakhstan would be an important partner of NTB because the former has a rich oil reserve of up to 15 billion barrel, and a strong mining technology.
NNT is the world's third largest copper operation after Chili and Russia. NNT public relations officer Iradati Fuad said that the company's copper reserves amounted to 10.6 million tons, while gold reserves totaled 11.8 million ounces.
Iradati said that at full production capacity, NNT could produce up to 615 pound of copper, which was 2.5 percent of world's production, and 515 thousand ounces of gold.
Iradati said that the concentrates were being sent to smelters in Japan, Korea, Australia, and Europe according to the contract sales. (*)