PT Timah teams up with Vimico to explore for minerals in Vietnam
Thursday, May 3 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
State tin miner PT Timah has teamed up with Vietnam National Mineral Corp. (Vimico) to explore for minerals, especially tin, at offshore locations in Vietnam, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported on Thursday.
Timah Corporate secretary Prasetyo Budi Saksono said the company had sent 26 of its people to Vietnam to prepare for the exploration activities, as the exploration cooperation would commence next week.
"We have sent our workers and drilling equipment to Vietnam. And exploration activities will start soon," he told Bisnis in Jakarta on Wednesday.
He said that exploration activities in Vietnam would last for three months. If the company found strong indication of big mineral reserves there, the company would continue with exploitation activities.
Prasetyo, however, did not reveal how much investment fund it had allocated for mineral exploration in Vietnam. He only said that the company for the time being had only allocated funds for exploration activities.
While exploration activities on the way, Prasetyo said Timah would be negotiating with Vimico about the cooperation arrangement in exploiting the minerals. He speculated that Vimico would rather use a profit sharing scheme rather than Indonesia's contracts of works system for mining industries.
Timah expands its operation into Vietnam because of its dwindling tin reserves in the Bangka Belitung province. The company is currently also exploring for tin and other minerals in a number of provinces in Indonesia, including Aceh, West Kalimantan and East Java -- but such activities in those three provinces had all been stopped for some reasons.
Timah's exploration in Aceh had been halted since May 1999 due to worsening security situation in the restive province, while its exploration activities in West Kalimantan had also been stopped because of the inter-ethnic conflicts in the area, and its activities in East Java had also been suspended as it could not yet find a partner to explore for gold reserves in that territory. (*)