Less Than 50 Percent Of Domestically Absorbed, PTFI Exports Katoda To Malaysia And Vietnam

JAKARTA - PT Freeport Indonesia revealed that the absorption of copper cathodes by domestic industries is still low. Of the 800,000 production capacities per year, less than half are absorbed by the domestic industry.

PT Freeport Indonesia Senior Vice President (SVP) Government Relations Harry Pancasakti said the rest of the copper cathode that was not absorbed was then exported abroad.

"Unfortunately, this export is not far from the data we studied, the majority of buyers abroad come from neighboring countries, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam," Harry told the media crew when met on the Minerba Convex agenda 2025, October 16.

Harry said the reason the country's export destination was because it has a much more advanced electronic manufacturing industry than domestically. He considered, this later became one of the challenges for Indonesia to develop the industry in order to absorb copper cathodes.

He further said that one mean smelter has a production capacity of 500,000 to 600,000 tons of cathode per year. Meanwhile, PTFI has a cathode supply commitment with PT Hailiang Nova Material Indonesia which is also operating in the JIIPE Gresik area and has a volume of 100,000 tons per year

"The rest of the results will be the same as the excess cathode we produce at PT Smelting. This is shared homework because the majority of offtakers from Idonesia are only from the cable industry," said Harry.

In fact, according to him, there are still many industries in the country that can absorb cathodes. One of them is the air conditioning (AC) industry that can absorb copper.

He also highlighted the facts on the ground, such as the cable industry which actually requires 600,000 copper but cannot absorb cathode. In fact, the industry can already produce 800,000 copper cathodes.

"They say it takes 600,000 tons per year, but why do we produce almost 400,000 tons per year it is still not absorbed," he said.