Jakarta-PT Aneka Tambang (Persero) or Antam Tbk officially started the construction of the project Ferronickel East Halmahera. "The project of expansion in the processing of nickel ore into ferronickel demonstrates our competence to move towards a value-added downstream industries," said Director of Antam,Alwinsyah Lubis, in Jakarta, Wednesday, November 30, 2011, the disclosure of information.

The project is one project Masterplan Economic Development Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia (MP3EI) for Economic Corridor Papua and Maluku Islands. This project production capacity reaches 27 thousand tons of nickel in ferronickel with comissioning are expected to commence operation in late 2014.

This project alone will be developed by PT FeNi Haltim, a wholly subsidiary directly or indirectly owned by the Company. Value of projects worth U.S. $ 1.6 billion, including $ 600 million to build a power plant with a capacity of 275 megawatts being developed PT PLN (Persero).

For project financing, the Company appointed a consortium of financial arrangers comprising Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Mandiri Securities, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation Ltd., and Standard Chartered Bank. The Consortium will support the funding of projects with the optimal scheme for amounts up to U.S. $ 1 billion.

Related to energy requirements, prior to the beginning of 2011, Antam and PLN also agreed on the cooperation of energy supply for 30 years for operations and infrastructure projects Haltim FeNi. PLN plans to finance, construct, and operate power plants for the needs of the project.

"Construction project in Halmahera marked the start of our second key projects this year, after construction of the project in April Chemical Grade Alumina (CGA) Tayan started," said Alwinsyah.