PROYEK SMELTER - JAKARTA. Indonesia's President Joko Widodo launched a $941 million smelter-grade alumina refinery run by state miner Aneka Tambang and state-owned aluminium producer Inalum in the country's West Kalimantan province on Tuesday.
The production capacity of the refinery is 1 million metric tons of alumina per year, which would absorb 3.3 million tons input of bauxite.
The companies are planning to expand the plant's production capacity by another 1 million tons and build an aluminium plant to further process the alumina output, according to Hendi Prio Santoso, chief executive of MIND ID, parent company of both Inalum and Antam.
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"The domestic aluminium needs is 1.2 million tons, 56% are imported while we have the raw material. When these are all completed, we can stop the import," Jokowi, as the president is known, said in his remarks.