Once Halted, Indonesia's Giant Copper Smelter Is Back in Operation
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) has announced that its second processing and refining facility (smelter) in the Java Integrated Industrial and Ports Estate (JIIPE) Special Economic Zone in Gresik, East Java, has resumed operations. The restart follows the recovery of concentrate supply from the mine after the underground mine landslide incident in September 2025.
PT Freeport Indonesia President Director Tony Wenas said concentrate feeding to the new smelter resumed in August 2026, and the smelter began producing copper cathode in September 2026 at around 5,000 tonnes.
“The ramp-up of the smelter production — Freeport’s new smelter — after the landslide last year, the new smelter stopped operating because the concentrate supply was insufficient to feed the new smelter, only enough to feed the existing PT Smelting,” Tony said during a hearing with Commission XII of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) in Jakarta on Tuesday (15/9/2026).
“And only last August did feeding to Freeport Indonesia’s new smelter begin, and production started this September with around 5,000 tonnes of copper cathode,” he added.
It is worth noting that before halting in October 2025, Freeport’s second smelter had actually begun operating in June 2024, albeit still in the commissioning phase. It then started production in August 2024.
However, in October 2024 a fire broke out in the smelter area, specifically in a small unit known as the gas cleaning plant, which captures SO2 from the furnace output. The SO2 is captured to prevent air pollution and is processed into sulphuric acid. Repairs were carried out and the smelter was able to resume operations in May 2025.
The smelter project, valued at US$4.2 billion, processes 1.7 million tonnes of copper concentrate per year. It is Freeport’s second copper smelter after PT Smelting, which processes 1.3 million tonnes of copper concentrate per year.
The second smelter project at JIIPE Gresik produces 600,000 tonnes of copper cathode and Precious Metal Refinery (PMR) products of 6,000 tonnes per year, or roughly 50 tonnes of gold per year. It is the largest single-line smelter in the world. Together with its first smelter (PT Smelting), Freeport will produce around 1 million tonnes of copper cathode per year.