Minister Of SOEs: Indonesia Can Produce Its Own Alumina Starting March 2025
JAKARTA - Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) Erick Thohir said Indonesia could produce its own alumina this year. That way, Indonesia can suppress large amounts of alumina imports.
This is because Indonesia has a bauxite processing and purification (smelter) to become an alumina at the first phase of the Smelter Grade Alumina Refinery (SGAR), Mempawah, West Kalimantan.
"The current recovery, hopefully this March in West Kalimantan, we can start producing our own alumina. What we used to import was up to 1.2 million tons, now we can produce 1 million," said Erick when speaking at the MINDIALogue event at The Energy Building, Jakarta, Thursday, January 9.
With the operation of the smelter, according to Erick, Indonesia can save import costs of US$300 million or equivalent to Rp4.8 trillion (exchange rate of Rp. 16,195 per US dollar).
"So maybe only 200,000 tons of imports. It might save 300 million US dollars," he said.
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In addition, Erick said that in terms of downstreaming, the PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) smelter in the Special Economic Zone, Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate (JIIPE), Gresik, East Java, can also produce semiconductor raw materials.
"Sometimes we are proud of how come the biggest smelter in the world continues to highlight it. But not the detailed derivative. While at Freeport it is interesting, yes, there is actually raw material for selenium, for chip," he said.