TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Freeport Indonesia (IDX: PTFI) is preparing US$600 million, or roughly Rp8.2 trillion in today's rate, to build smelting facilities at the Java Integrated Industrial and Port Estate (JIIPE) in Gresik, East Java this year.

Freeport Indonesia president director Tony Wenas said the budget would be spent on constructing the smelter, which is scheduled to start in August.

"The budget for the smelter project is US$600 million for this year and US$1.1 billion next year," he said in a hearing session with the House of Representative's (DPR) Commission VII today, February 18.

According to Tony, until 2023 Freeport's smelter expenditure amounts to US$3 billion. The project's main sources of financing are bank loans totaling US$2.8 billion.

Tony said the loans came from nine banks, both domestic and overseas, which he could not disclose yet.

To date, Freeport's smelter construction progress has only reached 4.88 percent, just slightly faster than the targeted 4.09 percent. The company expects that the physical work in August would accelerate the project's working progress.

Freeport Indonesia is targeting the smelter to be ready for commercial operation by the later months of 2023. For precious metal refinery (PMR), operations are expected to start in Q4/2022.

Once completed, the smelter would have 2 million tons of annual capacity for copper concentrates.

Bisnis.com