Rampung Mei, Freeport Gresik Smelter Baru Production Katoda Akhir Agustus

Illustration of mining construction (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - The smelter of PT Freeport Indonesia in the JIIPE area, Gresik, East Java will certainly be completed in May 2024. However, the smelter that produces this copper cathode will only produce cathode by the end of August 2024. President Director of PTFI. Tony Wenas said, this smelter will actually start operating on June 1, 2024 according to the government's target but not necessarily production. Tony said, currently the progress of the construction of this smelter has reached 94 percent and will be completed in May 2024. "Mei completed, June the operation but not yet produced," Tony told the media quoted on Thursday, April 11. Tony explained, in early August PTFI will only include a copper concentrate into the smelter and the cathode production process will run for 3 weeks so that the final product in the form of a new copper cathode will be completed by the end of August. "Because the concentration of the feed there is only around the beginning of August, so that the achr August has just issued its copper cathode. That's a process of approximately 3 weeks," Tony continued. Tony. Anthony also explained that for the initial stage his party would only produce 50 percent copper or about 850,000 tons of the total annual production capacity of 1.7 million tons. He ensured that this smelter would only operate with full capacity by the end of 2024 "Akhir this year will be 100 percent. 50 percent of the 1.7 million tons are 850,000 tons roughly," Tony concluded. As to know, this project is the second smelter of PTFI. The first smelter was built in 1996 and managed by PT Smelting with an investment value of up to US$3.1 billion or equivalent to Rp48 trillion as of the end of December 2023.

The copper smelter with the largest Design Single Line in the world will be able to purify the copper concentrate with a production capacity of 1.7 million tons and produce copper cathodes of up to 600,000 tons per year. The main smelter products are purely bullion copper, gold and silver cathodes, and PGM (Platinum Group Metal). Side products include sulfate, gypsum, and lead acid.