TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on Thursday paid a visit to the crude tin smelting plant project run by PT Timah Tbk that is planned to be completed in November. He emphasized his vision to take this smelter to mimic the downstream strategy in the nickel industry.

"We hope that the downstream movement in lead will soon follow the steps as we did in nickel," said Jokowi at the project site located in Bangka Belitung, Thursday, October 20. "This shows our seriousness in downstreaming tin and nickel, so I will closely monitor (the downstream process)."

PT Timah has also targeted the smelter project with the TSL Ausmelt Furnace technology to complete and start to operate next month. The smelter operation is projected to increase efficiency in the range of 25 percent to 34 percent.

PT Timah's Corporate Secretary Abdullah Umar explained that the development of the Ausmelt Furnace project had reached 97 percent by September. The project, which is estimated to absorb an investment of US$80 million, will have a capacity of 40,000 tons of crude tin per year.

Abdullah said the smelter is equipped with the latest technology with the ability to process or smelt tin ore concentrate with a minimum grade of 40 percent or in the low-grade category.

“Our current smelter can only do the smelting for tin ore concentrate with a grade of 70 percent. This means that the new smelter will be more efficient,” he explained.

Jokowi reiterated that all mining commodities will be steered into the downstream industry. "Because the added value is in this, the value is there," he said.

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