The government is planing to grant extension of copper concentrate export permit for PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) after a fire broke into its smelter last October despite the fact that the country has officially banned export of raw minerals, including copper.
Tri Winarno, Coal and Mineral Director General at Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) said there must be a trigger for government to allow Freeport to export its copper concentrates.
“Basically, Indonesia has banned the export of copper concentrate. There must be trigger to allow the export,” Tri Winarno said on Friday, February 7, 2025.
According to Tri Winarno, based on the ESDM ministry’s investigation, the fire in Freeport’s smelter in Gresik in October 2024 was not intentionally and possibly caused by a problem in electrical system.
“I do not say short circuit. But there was a problem in the electricity system,” he said.
As the government has completed the investigation, he, however, did not have the idea when the government will issue the permit extension for Freeport Indonesia.
As previously reported, PTFI has submitted a request for copper concentrate export relaxation after the export permit expired on December 31, 2024. This request was submitted following a fire incident at its smelter facility located in the Gresik Special Economic Zone (KEK), East Java, which caused the cessation of copper cathode production operations.
President Director of PTFI, Tony Wenas, has revealed that all smelter operations were still halted for the repair process.
“It’s still completely stopped. If it’s being repaired, it’s impossible to produce,” Tony spoke to the media at the Office of the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy on January 3, 2025.
Meanwhile, a senior official at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, Elen Setiadi, said that based on PTFI’s report, the smelter could only gradually return to production in July 2025.
“Ramp-up is targeted to start in July, but its capacity is only 40 percent of total production,” he said.
Tony Wenas ensured that PTFI had conducted a thorough investigation to determine the cause of the fire and identify the damage. The incident occurred at the gas cleaning plant facility, which functions to clean CO2 gas from the concentrate combustion process.
The gas cleaning plant facility that caught fire plays an important role in converting CO2 gas into sulfuric acid, which is used for the fertilizer industry, nickel HPAL factories, and various other needs.
