Freeport Reveals the Added Value of Mineral Downstream Program

President Director of PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) Tony Wenas revealed the huge added value of the mineral downstream program. The magnitude of this value is affected because mineral is the raw material for making electric vehicle batteries.

Reported by cnbcindonesia.com, Tony explained this added value with bauxite as an example. The value added of bauxite for semi-finished goods or alumina is 40%. When it is processed into finished goods or aluminum, the added value increases to 100%.

“This is the final product of a mining company, the metal. These are products that are already available domestically, nickel, aluminum, copper, and copper cathodes. It is these mining minerals that are further processed by manufacturing into useful items. For example, EV batteries, or EV production,” said Tony at the CNBC Indonesia Economic Outlook 2023 event in Jakarta (28/2/2023).

According to Tony, mineral downstream program is an integral part of an ecosystem. Starting from raw minerals as the raw materials, and continuing with the stages of processing. As for mining itself, the ultimate mineral downstream program is metal production.

“This ecosystem and the industry needs to be created to be more suitable for downstream program. Because the raw materials are already available in Indonesia,” he added.

For the electric vehicle battery ecosystem project, for example. Tony said this project would require raw materials in the form of up to 18% nickel, 10% copper, 15% aluminum, cobalt, lithium, and graphite.