Mandiri interested in financing Antam's expansion plan

State-owned bank Bank Mandiri was interested in providing financing for state-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) to expand the ferronickel plant in Pomalaa in Southeast Sulawesi, Antam said.

Antam's corporate secretary Dohar Siregar said in a statement to the Stock Exchange Supervisory Body (Bapepam) on Thursday a consortium led by Bank Mandiri sent a proposal to the company, which disclosed the consortium's interest in financing the so-called FeNI III expansion project.

"The proposal is being evaluated," Dohar said.

He said the FeNI III project, which will increase the company's ferronickel output t 24,000 tons per year from 11,000 at present, is worth US$220 million including interest during construction. Antam is ready to cover 30 percent of the cost.

Antam has several times delayed the project due to difficulties in obtaining funding for the project.

The first tender for the engineering, procurement, construction of the project was launched in 1998 but it did not run as expected and the project should be delayed.

The tender opened again in May 2000 but the project was again cancelled as the preferred bidder Mitsui & Co of Japan pulled out due to financial difficulties.

Dohar said Antam recently relaunched the tender with bidders including Mitsui & Co and Tessag AG of Germany.

"The proposals are being evaluated by independent consultants and the result of the evaluation is expected to come in the fourth quarter of this year, " Dohar said in the statement.

Antam expected to solve the financing problem in the fourth quarter of the year but if the problem remained, Antam would delay again the project, Dohar said. (Bodega)