Tembaga Mulia requires 72,000 tons copper cathode this year

By Hiski Darmayana

IDX-listed copper and aluminum rod producer PT Tembaga Mulia Semanan Tbk will need copper cathode supply of 72,000 tons this year.

?About 75 percent of the requirement is expected to come from PT Smelting Gresik and the remainder to be imported from Australia and Japan,? said Director Hendry Setyono to Petromindo.com on Tuesday, while adding that the copper cathode from PT Smelting is the result of processing copper concentrate produced by PT Freeport Indonesia.

Hendry added that the copper cathode will be processed by the company into copper rods, of which the company plans to produce 108,000 tons.

?The copper rods will be marketed to infrastructure projects already approved by the government,? he said.

Meanwhile, for aluminum rods, the company plans to produce 55,000 tons this year. As such the company will require supply of aluminum ingot of 30,000 tons this year. ?We?re going to import much of this from Australia, while the remainder will come from PT Inalum,? he said, while adding that the company plans to export the aluminum rods to Australia and South Asia.

Kontan daily reported Wednesday, quoting company President Director Kunio Ino, that Tembaga Mulia Semanan this year only obtains 700 tons of aluminum ingot from Inalum.

Kunio said that his company plans to allocate Rp 33 billion in capital expenditure this year to help expand production capacity of aluminum rods, and modernize machinery as well as purchase new equipment.

He said that sales this year is expected to increase by 35 percent from US$692 million last year, while net profit to rise by 30 percent to $2.65 million on 15 percent increase in the production of aluminum and copper rods.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak