Fertilizer firm to build new plant worth $104.2m

Fertilizer firm to build new plant worth $104.2m

JAKARTA (JP): PT Pupuk Kalimantan Timur, a state-owned
fertilizer firm, signed an agreement here yesterday with a
consortium of PT Rekayasa Industri and Chiyoda Corporation of
Japan to build new production unit worth US$104.2 million.

"The new unit will use environmentally-friendly technology,
which will enable it to turn its liquid wastes into clean water
and to reprocess the released carbon dioxide gas to become a raw
material together with ammonia for the making of urea
fertilizer," Pupuk Kalimantan Timur's president, Syaiful Anwar,
said at the signing ceremony at the Ministry of Industry and
Trade office.

The company's existing production units simply release their
liquid wastes as pollutants into the sea and gasses into the air,
he said.

When it starts production in 1999, the new unit will produce
570,000 tons of urea fertilizer a year, bringing its total annual
production to 2.4 million tons. The establishment of the new
unit, therefore, will make the company the largest urea producer
in the country, he said.

Syaiful said that 50 percent of the costs for the new unit's
construction will be financed with equity and the remainder with
loans from domestic private and state-owned banks.

Secretary-general of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Aidil
Juzar, said in his speech that with the new unit, Indonesia will
be able to assure adequate supplies of fertilizer on the domestic
market.

Aside from PT Pupuk Kalimantan Timur, the government has five
other fertilizer producers -- PT Pusri in South Sumatra, PT
Petrokimia Gresik in East Java, PT Pupuk Iskandar Muda and PT
Aceh Fertilizer Plant in Aceh, and PT Pupuk Kujang in West Java.

According to Syaiful, Indonesia's total production of
fertilizers currently reaches six million tons a year, exceeding
the annual domestic demand of about 4.5 million tons. (jsk)