PT Antam, BHP to develop nickel on Gag island

JAKARTA (JP): State-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) has signed a joint-venture agreement with the Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) of Australia to conduct a feasibility study on nickel development on Gag island.

"We expect to complete the feasibility study on the eastern Indonesian island within six months, " Antam President Darmoko Slamet told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

"If the study's results are encouraging, we will set up a joint-venture mining company next year," he said.

He added that BHP will have a stake of 85 percent in the joint venture and Antam 15 percent. "But based on our agreement we can increase our share to 25 percent," said Darmoko.

It has been known for years that there are nickel resources on Gag island and the right to mine there is currently held by Aneka Tambang. However, the technology was not available to commercialize the resource in a cost effective manner.

A BHP executive told the Post here that his company has been developing advanced technologies for the recovery of nickel and cobalt from such deposits.

Antam currently mines nickel in Gebe island, Halmahera, and on Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi, and processes its products in Pomalaa. In 1994, the state firm produced 2.3 million tons of nickel ore and 57,000 tons of ferronickel.

Data of the Ministry of Mines and Energy shows that Indonesia has nickel deposits of 881.3 million metric tons in Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Maluku, and Irian Jaya, with a 1.3 to 3 percent nickel content. (13)