Besides the establishment of the gold refinery (having an annual production capacity of 20 tons), which is expected to need around USD $475 million of investments, Indosmelt is also planning to issue bonds and acquire a bank loan from Indonesia Eximbank to finance the construction of an integrated copper smelter in Bontoala (South Sulawesi). The factory's copper cathodes production capacity will be 120,000 tons per year. In addition, it will produce 300,000 tons of copper slag and 200,000 tons of anode slag after operations start in early 2017. Total investments of the refining facilities amount to USD $1.5 billion.

In December 2013, Indosmelt signed an agreement with Freeport Indonesia and Newmont Nusa Tenggara for the delivery of raw materials. Together, these two companies account for about 97 percent of Indonesia's total copper production.

The building of smelting facilities is a consequence of the government's recently implemented ban on exports of unprocessed minerals. Currently, there is only one copper smelter active in Indonesia (Smelting in East Java). Other companies, including Nusantara Smelting and Global Investindo also have plans to build copper smelters construction. However, in order for copper smelting to be a viable business, the benchmark copper price should exceed USD $6,000 per ton.

Bahas