Freeport Smelter Becomes the Foundation of Indonesia's Competitiveness
21 June 2023
President of the Republic of Indonesia Joko Widodo inspected the smelter development project owned by PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) in the Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate (JIIPE) Special Economic Zone, Gresik, East Java on Tuesday (20/6). During his visit, President Jokowi appreciated PTFI for having completed 72.5 percent of the smelter construction from the target of 74.27 percent at the end of June, according to the government's S-curve timeline.
In his review of the PTFI smelter project, President Joko Widodo said that the derivatives from this smelter will be integrated into finished goods within a large ecosystem, one of which is the electric vehicle ecosystem. According to him, this can push Indonesia to become a developed country.
"In the future we will have competitiveness. The smelter is the foundation for becoming a developed country because from what was based on consumption, now it is based on production," said Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
PTFI continues to complete several works which include a concrete smelter, steel installation, construction of a jetty and port wharf, and construction of a desalination facility. The physical construction will be completed by the end of December 2023, then will go through the pre-commissioning and commissioning stages for five months to ensure all facilities function without problems and start their operational activities at the end of May 2024.
PTFI President Director Tony Wenas said that the development achievements that have been achieved so far cannot be separated from the extraordinary support from the government, company partners, and the nation's best people, especially the people of Gresik. "This smelter will enable PTFI to support the accelerated development of the downstream industry, the transformation of the national economy, as well as the agenda for the electric vehicle ecosystem," said Tony Wenas on the same occasion.
The construction of the PTFI smelter is worth three billion US dollars or the equivalent of 45 trillion rupiah and to date this project has spent 2.2 billion US dollars or the equivalent of 33 trillion rupiah. Once fully operational, the smelter will be able to process copper concentrate with a product capacity of 1.7 million dry metric tons (dmt) and produce up to 600,000 tons of copper cathodes per year. (Corporate Communications)
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