PT Inalum building an alumina refinery in Mempawah, West Kalimantan

PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium, better known as Inalum, is reportedly building an alumina refinery in Mempawah, West Kalimantan, the completion of which will save the company’s raw materials costs reaching US$200 million, said Executive Advisor Oggy A. Kosasih on Saturday, May 18.

In addition, the refinery will lower the dependence on imports to source raw materials for producing aluminium. It will expectedly reduce the exports as well, as the raw minerals will get used domestically, noted Oggy A. Kosasih in Medan, North Sumatra.

For the development of this refinery, Inalum has partnered with PT Antam Tbk through their joint venture subsidiary PT.

Kosasih explained many other advantages as well which this refinery will bring in as the replacement of alumina imports for which Inalum has been making several efforts to realise domestic production of alumina products and capitalise on the value of PT Antam Tbk’s bauxite reserves.

"It is then planned to build an integrated upstream to downstream industry chain for the extraction of alumina from bauxite to produce aluminium and is expected to boost the economy of the local area where alumina refining plants are built," he elaborated.

Inalum is the first and largest SOE of Indonesia engaged in aluminium smelting. Its existence as an aluminium smelting industry has laid a strong foundation for developing influential, value-added, and competitive downstream mining industry.