Miners need more time to build smelters: IMA

Syahrir AB, the executive director of the Indonesian Mining Association (IMA) said that the government needed to find a solution on how to cope with difficulties in complying with the requirement imposed on local mines to process their raw mineral at local refineries, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Tuesday

Next year, miners should process their mineral production at their own smelters or at smelters owned by other companies, because under the new mining law, beginning 2014, they will be no longer allowed to export unprocessed minerals.

Syahrir, however, said that it would be difficult to meet the deadline because the construction of a smelting plant would require a long time.

?The problem in building a smelter is not only about economic and non-economic rationale. It could be economically feasible, but it will need at least up to 2017 to build a smelter, while according to the deadline, the smelters should be operated in 2014,? he said.

He, therefore, called on the government to review the policy because it would be impossible for all miners to comply with the regulation. According to him, the requirement should be based on commodities.

He said that the deadline should for example be extended to 2015, 2016 and 2017 depending on the type of the commodities. (*)