Freeport-McMoRan is moving ahead at "full throttle" with plans to develop a new smelter in Indonesia in partnership with state-owned PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (PT Inalum), the chief executive officer of the US copper producer said.
The smelter is part of a package agreed by the company and the government, ending several years of negotiations over the fate of Freeport's activities in Indonesia, where it operates the giant Grasberg copper and gold mine."With the signing of the agreement, we're going full throttle working to develop the smelter," Richard Adkerson told Fastmarkets in an interview in Santiago, Chile, on Tuesday April 9."We have a site selected in east Gresik, and we're working on engineering, planning and procurement. The debate on the smelter is over," he added.Gresik is the site of an existing smelter...