PTFI sees copper, gold outputs up in 2014
Saturday, January 11 2014 - 02:17 AM WIB
Gold and copper giant PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI)?s President Director Rozik C. Soetjipto said that the company?s copper production will rise by 12 percent to 500,000 tons this year if it is allowed to continue copper concentrate export as proposed.
The company expected gold production to increase to 50 to 55 tons this year from 37.5 tons last year, Rozik said.
?These all are the production from both Grasberg and underground mines,? he told Petromindo.com via text message on Friday.
As mandated by the 2009 Mining Law, the government has planned to bar the export of unprocessed mineral ores starting January 12, 2014, forcing miners to process the ores at domestic smelters. But amid protests from miners, government officials said earlier this week the export ban policy would be relaxed, allowing miners to continue export certain mineral ores such as copper concentrate until 2017, when sufficient capacity of domestic smelters is expected to have already been constructed.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak