Antara /  The Jakarta Globe reported that, as the government gears up to ban all exports of unprocessed commodities, Indonesia will see 12 new smelters in operation by the end of 2014, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday.

The smelters, which will help process the nation’s mineral and coal output, are owned by local and international companies, said Thamrin Sihite, the director general of mineral and coal at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.

In Cilegon, Banten province, steel billets producer Indoferro will build a smelter with a processing capacity of up to 500,000 tons of sponge iron per year. It is expected to be in operation sometime this year, Thamrin said.

DH Energy and its affiliated coal miner will also build a coal upgrading facility to produce up to five million tons of high-calorific value coal products for the export market by 2013.

State-miner Aneka Tambang (Antam) will build smelters in Halmahera, North Maluku, to produce 27,000 tons of ferronickel annually; in North Konawe, Southeast Sulawesi, for 120,000 tons of “pig iron” annually; and in Mempawah, West Kalimantan, for one million tons of smelter-grade alumina. The smelters are expected to be ready in 2014.

Ferronickel, pig iron and smelter-grade alumina are all processed commodities .

A joint venture between Antam and two Japanese companies, Showa Denko and Marubeni Corporation, will produce 300,000 tons of chemical-grade alumina annually with a smelter in Tayan, West Kalimantan.

Krakatau Steel and South Korea’s Posco are also teaming up to build a plant that will produce 3.5 million tons of steel plate, 2.5 million tons of slab steel and 3 million tons of hot rolled coil. Operations are targeted to begin in 2014.

The government earlier this month issued a regulation to implement a new law that will ban the export of unprocessed commodities.

The ban will begin in May for miners in the processing stage and in three years for those in the exploration stage.

Companies that breach the regulation will face sanctions,including the revocation of their mining licenses and the suspension of their shipping activities.

The government said earlier that it expects all raw minerals to be processed prior to shipment by 2014.
Source: Antara /  The Jakarta Globe