The ministry’s mineral business supervision director, Yunus Saefulhak, said two major copper and gold miners, PT Freeport Indonesia and PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara, for example, would scale back copper concentrate production as stated in their annual work program and budget reports.

“They plan to decrease their production this year,” he said in Jakarta after attending a meeting at the House of Representatives on Monday, as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Freeport Indonesia will reduce output over the next few years as it transitions from open-pit mining to underground mining.

Last year, the country had targeted production of 1.88 million tons of copper concentrate but only exported 1.81 million tons. For this year’s first two months, meanwhile, the government had targeted production of 141,558 tons of copper concentrate, while actual exports reached 104,269 tons.

That figure, however, does not take into account exports by Freeport and Amman Mineral, which had only received their export permits last week, Yunus added.

He revealed that the government allowed Freeport to export 198,282 wet metric tons (wmt) of copper concentrate and Amman Mineral to export 336,100 wmt this year. Last year, Freeport exported 1.25 million tons and Amman Mineral exported 450,826 tons.

Meanwhile, iron concentrate production was recorded at 3.98 million tons last year, while exports of 1.04 million tons were realized. This year, Yunus said, the government was expecting exports of 1.29 million tons, of which 248,677 tons were realized in the first two months.

Yunus noted a similar downtrend in the production and export of other minerals. (bbn)

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