Freeport to Build Smelter in Gresik
20 August 2014 13:56 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - R. Sukhyar, Director General of Minerals and Coal for the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), said that Freeport Indonesia has decided to build a smelter in Gresik, East Java. He said that there are four land owners who offered to cooperate with Freeport.
“There are already four parties who offered their lands. This means that Freeport can either buy or rent the lands offered,” said Sukhyar yesterday.
He also said that Freeport requires 80 acres of land to build the smelter with an annual production capacity of 1.8 million tons of copper concentrate. The company's consideration in choosing Gresik as the location for their smelter plant was the availability of the supporting infrastructure and the presence of other industries that will utilize the smelter's byproducts.
Previously, there were talks about building the smelter in Papua. “We understand Papua’s concern, but it will be very difficult to [build a smelter] in such a short term, because if the requirements are not met, then the [copper] concentrate cannot be exported,” said Sukhyar.
BERNADETTE CHRISTINA MUNTHE
