DIGIVESTASI - PT Freeport Indonesia officially commenced operations at its second copper smelting and refining facility at the Java Integrated Industrial and Ports Estate (JIIPE) Special Economic Zone (KEK) in Gresik, East Java, last week. This new plant is designed to process 1.7 million tons of domestic copper annually, making it the world's largest single-line smelter.

In addition to producing 600-700 thousand tons of copper cathodes per year, this smelter can also process anode slime into 50-60 tons of pure gold and 220 tons of silver annually.

PTFI President Director Tony Wenas revealed that PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (ANTM) has agreed to purchase 20 tons of gold annually from the smelter. "Antam and we have agreed to purchase around 20 tons of gold per year," Tony said at the inauguration of PTFI's second smelter in Gresik on Thursday (7/4/2024).

Tony also mentioned that PT Hailiang Group, located near Freeport's smelter at JIIPE, has requested to purchase 100 thousand tons of copper cathodes annually. "Our neighbor has requested around 100 thousand tons per year," he said.

Tony hopes that the domestic market will increasingly absorb the products from this copper plant. Besides lower costs, the domestic market also offers market-determined prices. "If there is a market, of course, we are happy to sell domestically because transportation costs are cheaper," Tony added.

This giant copper plant covers an area of 100 hectares and officially began operations on Thursday (6/27/2024). Freeport previously had its first smelter, PT Smelting, with an input production capacity of 1.3 million tons of copper concentrate per year.

With the operation of the second smelter, Freeport can now absorb and process 3 million tons of copper concentrate per year, producing 1 million tons of copper cathodes annually. In addition to copper cathodes, the new smelter will produce 6,000 tons of anode slime per year, which will be processed into pure gold and silver through the Precious Metals Refinery (PMR).

Other by-products include 1.5 million tons of sulfuric acid per year, 1.3 million tons of copper slag per year, and 150 thousand tons of gypsum per year.

According to PTFI's report, the cumulative investment value for the Manyar smelter project, which occupies an area of 100 hectares, has reached US$ 3.7 billion or around Rp 58 trillion.