inp.polri.go.id - Jakarta. President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) inaugurated Freeport Indonesia smelter in Gresik, East Java Province, on Monday (8/22/2024) afternoon.
The inauguration marks a major milestone in the nation's mining industry. President Jokowi reminisced the tough challenges he has faced during his 10 years in office, especially in convincing mining companies to invest in the construction of smelters.
"I remember, the hard and tiring work during my tenure as President for 10 years was inviting mining companies to build smelters," said President Jokowi on Monday (9/22/2024).
The negotiation was between President Jokowi and Chairman of the Board of Freeport, Richard Adkerson which has been going on since 2017. The negotiation was tough because the investment funds needed to build a relatively large smelter installation is around IDR 56 trillion.
Upon the long and arduous negotiation, Jokowi realized that the company must go through a careful calculation to see what are the benefits of building this smelter.
After land preparation was completed in 2018, President Jokowi then began construction of the factory and he is pleased that after 30 months have passed, the factory construction has finally completed.
Freeport Indonesia's smelter factory in Gresik is part of the supporting program for the downstreaming of the mineral resource industry in Indonesia. Based on a special mining business permit, the operation of the second smelter owned by Freeport Indonesia allows mineral resources to be fully managed from upstream to downstream domestically.
This smelter is a copper refining facility with the largest single-line design in the world. The smelter is equipped with main facilities of a copper smelting and refining plant with a precious metal refining unit and various supporting facilities.
The supporting facilities include ports, concentrate warehouses, slag treatment, steam dryers, oxygen plants, sulfuric acid processing, desalination, wastewater and surface water treatment installations.
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