Perhapi forecasts miners to trim output by 20% on low prices

By Bambang Atmaja

Indonesian Mining Expert Association (Perhapi) projected that mining firms would decrease production by about 20 percent due to lower global commodity prices, which may continue in coming months, top official of the association said.

Budi Santoso, chairman of working group of mineral policy of Perhapi said that miners would avoid producing more ores as it was going to bring financial shortage, but they would not also produce to low as they had to pay operational costs.

"Automatically miners will cut production by about 20 percent. Because some mineral ores can not be kept long. Coal can only be kept for 20 days or its quality will decline," he told Petromindo.com..

But for processed minerals which can be kept longer, such as nickel, the miners may reduce sales, said Budi.

He forecasted the price to rebound in 2014 or 2015 in line with four year cycle which has happened in the past several years.

Editing by Adianto P. Simamora