Papua demands 10% stake in PT Freeport
Saturday, February 7 2015 - 04:14 AM WIB
Papua Governor Lukas Enembe urged the central government to give the local administration the priority in acquiring the PT Freeport stake. ?We demand a 10 percent stake,? he told reporters following a meeting with Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Sudirman Said on Friday.
PT Freeport, which operates the giant Grasberg gold mine Papua, plans to sell about 10.64 percent stake this year as part of the divestment obligation. Minister Sudirman has previously said that the central government, which already owns a 9.36 percent stake in the company, would offer the stake to state-owned enterprises particularly mining firm PT Aneka Tambang Tbk.
Earlier, the Papua administration has also demanded PT Freeport to build the required domestic smelter in Papua to provide greater economic benefit to the local people. Freeport has planned to build the copper cathode smelter in Gresik, East Java, and has signed an MoU with PT Petrokimia Gresik to lease about 80 hectares of land from the latter as location for the planned smelter.
The government has required PT Freeport and other mineral concentrates producers to build domestic smelter by 2017.
Minister Sudirman said that the government would accommodate the demand of the Papua administration, suggesting the possibility for developing two smelters.
Director General of Mineral and Coal R. Sukhyar said that if PT Freeport is forced to build two smelters, the company would not be able to meet the 2017 deadline. This means that PT Freeport must be exempted from the deadline as set in the existing regulation.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak