Aneka Tambang sales fall 7.4%

Aneka Tambang sales fall 7.4%

JAKARTA: Indonesia's nickel and gold producer PT Aneka Tambang
or Antam, said Monday its total sales for the first nine months
of this year fell 7.4 percent to Rp 1.132 trillion (US$123
million) from Rp 1.223 trillion during the same period last year.

The company attributed the fall of its sales to the decrease
of its production of nickel metal contained in ferronickel, which
dropped 14 percent to 5,985 metric tons from 6,916 tons during
the same period last year.

Antam's annual nickel capacity is 11,000 tons. The company is
Indonesia's sole ferronickel producer.

Sales of ferronickel during the January-September period
dropped 7.8 percent to 5,552 metric tons from 6,025 tons last
year.

Antam estimates it will produce 8,600 tons of nickel metal
from ferronickel for the full year of 2002.

As for gold, Antam said it produced 2,687 kilograms in the
first nine months of this year, down 11 percent over the same
period last year of 3,033 kilograms.

For 2002, Antam said it estimates gold ore production to reach
395,000 wet metric tons, which will be used to produce and sell
3,800 kilograms of gold and 23,000 kilograms of silver. -- Dow
Jones