Govt asked to provide power supply for smelters

The Indonesian Nickel Association (ANI), as quoted by Investor Daily today, calls on the government to provide incentives in the form of power supply to support the construction and operation of nickel smelting plants to encourage nickel miners to build smelters as required by the new mining law.

The association?s chairman Shelby Ihsan said last week that the power supply would be an important aspect in the construction and operation of a smelter, especially those located in rural areas where the power supply is generally limited.

?Every smelter with a capacity of 2 million tons will need investment of about US$100 million,? he said.

He said that a number of companies had expressed their interest to build nickel smelters on Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Halmahera. These smelters will have total capacity of about 10 million tons, which are still far below total nickel production which reached 30 million tons a year, he added.

PT Weda Bay Nickel said earlier that it planned to build a nickel smelting plant in its nickel mine in Halmahera, North Maluku with total investment of US$5 billion. PT Delma Mining Corporation also planned to a nickel smelter in Bulungan, East Kalimantan with total investment of about $125 million.

A Chinese company Ningxia Hengshun Smelter Group said it planned to build a smelter with investment of about $7billion.

Beginning 2014, mining companies will be banned from exporting unprocessed minerals. They should therefore build their own smelters or cooperate with smelting companies to process their production.(*)