High demand: A worker polishing gold bullion. The gold produced and mined directly by Antam is only one tonne per year while public demand was 37 tonnes last year and has reached 43 tonnes currently. — AFP
JAKARTA: State-owned miner PT Aneka Tambang (Antam) is continuing to import around 30 tonnes of gold annually to bridge the gap between its limited output and surging domestic demand for the precious metal.
Antam president director Achmad Ardianto said the company sourced most of its gold imports from Singapore and Australia to cover a growing domestic shortfall.
“Total domestic production is 90 tonnes, some of which is sold to jewellery companies and some exported,” Ardianto told a meeting with House of Representatives Commission VI, which oversees state-owned enterprises.
“So the gold produced and mined directly by Antam is only one tonne per year. Meanwhile, public demand was 37 tonnes last year and has now reached 43 tonnes,” he said.
The company’s primary gold facility, the Pongkor underground mine in West Java, has an annual capacity of around a tonne, as production has been halted at that level since reserves have dwindled to just five tonnes.
Now in its post-mining phase, the Pongkor mine is estimated to hold around 26 tonnes in remaining resources.
Beyond imports, Antam supplements its inventory through gold buyback programmes from the public and by purchasing and refining gold from other local miners, such as PT Indo Muro Kencana and PT Nusa Halmahera Minerals.
As part of its efforts to reduce imports, Antam is developing a US$70mil gold minting plant at the Java Integrated Industrial and Ports Estate in Gresik.
Currently in the pre-construction stage, the plant is targeted to start operations by the fourth quarter of 2027 and produce a combined total of five million gold bars and coins annually, in addition to industrial gold.
Antam has also signed a sales agreement with PT Freeport Indonesia for approximately 30 tonnes of gold, to be supplied from the refinery at Freeport’s new copper smelter in Gresik, East Java.
The deal is expected to significantly boost domestic supply and reduce the need for imports.
However, a landslide in September that trapped seven workers at Freeport’s Grasberg Block Cave underground mine in Central Papua forced the firm to temporarily halt operations.
As a result, the company expects a significant decline in its copper and gold output, with full recovery to pre-incident operating levels targeted for 2027.
Meanwhile, Antam continues to face major headwinds in selling ferronickel and bauxite, citing the government’s mineral benchmark price (HPM) policy as a primary constraint.
Ardianto warned that the policy had slowed sales and risked creating a costly buildup of unsold inventory.
“Furthermore, the HPM requires us to be extremely cautious in sales, and this could result in an increase in our inventory because we haven’t been able to sell products at the right time,” he told the House commission, adding that Antam was coordinating closely with the Attorney General’s Office regarding Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry Decree No. 268/2025, which governs the HPM.
Ardianto also noted that differing interpretations of the decree had created an environment of extreme caution for businesses to avoid potential missteps.
“Hopefully we can find the best solution, because at our bauxite mine, we cannot begin new mining activities since our stockpile is already full,” he said. — The Jakarta Post/ANN
