Tambang Timah moves into non-tin mining activities

JAKARTA (JP): Tin-mining firm PT Tambang Timah announced yesterday it would expand its mining operations into additional mineral resources.

Company president Erry Riyana Hardjapamekas said that the tin mining company had established three subsidiaries to carry out the expansion projects.

PT Timah Investasi Mineral will undertake exploration activities for gold and associated minerals in 11 mining blocks, covering 3.14 million hectares in Aceh, Sumatra, East and Central Kalimantan and East and Central Java this year.

The company said that last year's exploration activities included geological mapping covering 581,155 hectares, a geophysical survey covering 731,390 hectares and prospective drilling with a total drilling depth of 24,224 meters.

"The company had minor difficulties in its exploration activities in 1997 because of ethnic conflicts in West Kalimantan and haze caused by forest fires in Kalimantan," Erry said in a statement.

Several parts of the country, including Kalimantan and Sumatra were covered with thick haze for several months last year causing business activities to slow down.

The second subsidiary, PT Timah Batubara Utama, will oversee coal mining exploration in long Tesak, Kutai, East Kalimantan this year, he said.

Timah Batubara was awarded a contract of work from the government in November last year to mine coal in the areas.

PT Timah Tekhnik Rekayasa, the third subsidiary of the publicly listed Tambang Timah, has completed the acquisition of 37.04 percent of the shares of Singapore-based company Plimsoll Fleetwinch Private Limited.

"Such a business move was made to make Tambang Timah a multicommodity mining firm by the year 2000," Erry said.

Tambang Timah, dubbed the world's largest and lowest-cost tin producer, also reported a 13.5 percent increase in net profit to Rp 177.8 billion (US$17.78 million at the current rate)in 1997 from Rp 156.6 billion in 1996.

The company said that sales revenue also increased by 13.7 percent to Rp 691.6 billion in 1997 from Rp 607.9 billion in 1996.

Tin operations accounted for 99.5 percent of the total sales revenue with the remaining 0.5 percent coming from PT Dok & Perkapalan Air Kantung. (aly)