Indonesia's Aneka Tambang, or Antam, said Tuesday that production has commenced at its 1.5 million wet mt/year Tapunopaka nickel mine in southeast Sulawesi. The operation has produced an initial 50,000 wet mt, the company said in a statement.
Antam also operates the Pomalaa, Gee and Buli nickel mines and three ferronickel smelters at Pomalaa in southeast Sulawesi. "We plan to use ore from Tapunopaka to feed our ferronickel smelters at Pomalaa in line with the depletion of nickel reserves at the location, as well as to feed the Mandiodo nickel pig iron project in 2014," Antam development manager Tato Miraza said in the statement.
Antam said the Tapunopaka had a potential high grade nickel resource of 7.1 million mt at a grading of 2.3 percent and a low grade resource of 43.7 million wmt at a grading of 1.6 percent.
The company said it had spent Rupiah 75 billion ($8 million) developing the mine at the 6,213 hectare site into production, including exploration costs. Antam produced 3.39 million wmt of nickel in the six months to June 30, up 20 percent year-on-year, it said in its most recent production report on July 30. The company, which is 65 percent owned by the government of Indonesia, files copies of its reports with the Australian Securities Exchange.
Interim ferronickel production came in at 9,252 mt, up 52 percent from the same period of 2009, as a result of an optimisation programme at the Pomalaa smelter in September 2009.
Antam's unaudited revenue for the half year came in at Rupiah 4.3 trillion ($476 million), in line with the first half of 2009, as an 81 percent year-on-year increase in revenue from its nickel segment offset a reduction in its lower-margin metals trading activities, it said without giving details.
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