Antam forecasts higher output

Antam forecasts higher output

JAKARTA (Dow Jones): Indonesia's listed nickel and gold miner
PT Aneka Tambang expects to raise gold output by between 5% and
10% this year after it managed to bolster it to four tons last
year, from 2.7 tons in 1999, the company's president Deddy Aditya
Sumanegara said on Wednesday.

He said gold output will continue to rise as disturbances from
illegal miners near its gold mining site in Pongkor, West Java,
have been abating substantially.

"Now we can work peacefully," Deddy told journalists.

He added the number of illegal miners near its site has fallen
to between 100 and 200 people, from around 5,000 during the
height of the Asian economic crisis in 1998 and 1999.

Illegal miners several times set ablaze Aneka Tambang's
trucks, heavy equipment and buildings in Pongkor in 1998, which
prompted the company to temporarily shut down mining on a few
occasions in 1998 and 1999.