From pit to cathode: Keeping the pulse of mining beating
Morning activity begins with the roar of giant vehicles shaking the ground in the heart of the Batu Hijau mine, West Sumbawa Regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB).
A convoy of bright orange mining trucks, each the size of a two-storey house, crawls slowly along a gravel road built in terraces like a giant amphitheatre. The truck beds are packed with raw material dug up the previous night. Clouds of dust kicked up as the vehicles pass signal that a long journey has only just begun.
From the bottom of the very deep open pit, haul trucks shuttle back and forth carrying soil and rough rock containing mineral elements towards the smelter area.
The smelter facility is the most important part of producing metals for the manufacturing and construction industries. Its location close to the mineral deposit source helps keep raw material transport costs down.
At the smelter facility that underpins the pulse of the mining industry, concentrate is crushed and then enters the smelting process in furnaces at extremely high temperatures until it becomes molten metal. The metal is then further refined using additional methods to remove impurities, turning it into a range of derivative products with high economic value.
The steep hilly topography bears silent witness to the hard human effort to optimise mineral potential from the earth for use by civilisation as industrial raw materials, electronic components, infrastructure materials, and support for the health and economic sectors.
Amid the heat and dust clouds of the dry season, and the wet and mud of the rainy season, every turn of a haul truck wheel and the heat of the smelter represent a step towards added value. This daily routine is no longer just about mining, but about processing and refining for Indonesia.
For PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (AMNT), which runs mining activities in the Batu Hijau and Elang areas, the journey of operating the smelter has not been entirely smooth. The mineral processing and refining facility, with a design capacity of 900,000 tonnes of copper concentrate per year, has faced various obstacles since entering the commissioning stage in June 2024.