Jokowi Calls New Tin Smelter Shows Downstreaming Seriousness

President Joko Widodo delivered a statement on the Top Submerged Lance (TSL) Ausmelt PT Timah Tbk, Central Bangka Regency, Bangka Belitung. (Photo: Doc. ANTARA)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said that the new smelter owned by PT Timah Tbk shows the government's seriousness in downstreaming.

"Today, I saw a new smelter owned by PT Timah. This shows our seriousness in tin downstreaming. We have nickel, tin, bauxite", Jokowi said as quoted by Antara, Thursday, October 20.

The smelter or ore processing and refining plant owned by PT Timah Tbk is planned to be completed in November 2022.

"I will follow all of this and this will be completed in November. We hope that the downstream movement in the tin will soon follow as we do in nickel. But we have not calculated when we will stop exporting tin raw materials", he said.

However, President Jokowi said the government was still calculating when it would completely stop the export of raw materials, including tin.

"We need to calculate everything so that later everything goes well, no one will be harmed, but once again we have to stop the downstreaming of mining materials and everything goes to industrial downstreaming, everything goes to downstreaming because the added value is there, added value. It's there", Jokowi explained.

With the increase in added value, he continued, he hopes to create as many job opportunities as possible.

"(When the export of raw materials is stopped) is only calculated, we will stop it. When? Then we will calculate. Later when the calculation is done, I meet the calculation, and I will announce the stop, for example, next year's or this year's stop can happen. I think the preparations from the smelter We have to calculate everything, both the value of SOEs and the value of the private sector", Jokowi said.

PT Timah Tbk's Top Submerged Lance (TSL) smelter project has been started since 2019 with a progress of around 97.33 percent. The smelter is targeted to be able to melt tin ore concentrate with a content of 40 percent (low grade). The smelting process is faster with an efficiency of 25-34 percent compared to current smelters.

In addition to being more efficient, this smelter is expected to produce lower grades of tin than the current alluvial tin so that it can strengthen exploration in primary mines.

The cost of building the smelter reaches around 80 million US dollars or equivalent to IDR 1.2 trillion with a capacity of 40,000 tons of crude tin per year.

PT Timah's tin ore production in the first semester of 2022 was recorded at 9,901 Metric Tons (MT) which decreased by 14 percent compared to the same period last year 11,457 MT.

Meanwhile, tin production in this period also decreased by 26 percent to 8,805 MT from the first six months of 2021 at 11,915 MT.

Meanwhile, tin sales were recorded at 9,942 MT, down by 21 percent compared to the first six months of 2021 at 12,523 MT.