Freeport Indonesia has launched its Gresik smelter in Java after the first 22,000-ton batch of concentrate was delivered to it a few days earlier.
This supply of concentrate was moved and stored in a concentrate barn prior to processing in the flash smelting furnace. The project which cost $3.7 billion has a total input capacity of 1.7 million metric tons of copper concentrate.
According to Freeport Indonesia’s CEO Tony Wenas cited by Reuters, the smelter's output capacity will reach around 650 000 tons of copper cathode and 50 - 60 tons of gold. The facility is expected to produce its first copper cathode in August, he added.
Indonesia’s Investment Minister Bahlil Lahadalia who attended the commissioning of the project asked Freeport to build another copper smelter in the country's eastern region of Papua, near its Grasberg copper mine. Wenas told a press conference that such an investment request was timely given the government wants to develop an ecosystem to produce electric vehicles.
Freeport Indonesia is majority owned by the Indonesian government but operated by US mining giant Freeport McMoran.
Theodor Lisovoy, Editor in Chief, Rough&Polished
