Jakarta, January 19, 2015 - PT ANTAM (Persero) Tbk (ASX - ATM; IDX - ANTM; ANTAM) is pleased to announce the commencement of the operations of Top Blown Rotary Converter (TBRC) facility at ANTAM's Precious Metals Processing and Refinery Business Unit. The installment of the TBRC facility is intended for extracting gold metals and other valued metals such as selenium, palladium, platinum and others from anode slime. The TBRC facility was launched by the Director General of Minerals and Coal, R. Sukhyar and ANTAM's Operations Director, Tedy Badrujaman.
ANTAM's Operations Director, Tedy Badrujaman, said:
"The commencement of the operations of the TBRC facility reflects ANTAM's gold business expansion. The operations of the facility is intended for enhancing the added value of anode slime through domestic processing. The operations of the TBRC facility also signals ANTAM's strategy in strengthening the company's cash flows from the gold business. We previously expanded our gold retail distribution through the launch of Gold Boutiques. As well, we recently launched a gold depository service to further strengthen our gold business."
The US$500,000 TBRC facility has a processing capacity of 500 tons of anode slime per year. With an assumption of 1% gold content in one ton of anode slime, ANTAM expects to increase its gold production by 5 tons on top of the current gold production from the Pongkor and Cibaliung gold mines. ANTAM plans to increase its processing capacity to 2,000 tons of anode slime per year in the future.
The domestic processing of anode slime is anticipated to benefit Indonesia inline with the expectation of higher state revenue. ANTAM also expects government's support in relation to value added tax due to the project's strategic position within ANTAM's project portfolio.
