By Amy Lv and Pratima Desai
BEIJING/LONDON (Reuters) – Freeport McMoRan is expected to resume shipments of copper concentrate from Indonesia this month under a new export licence after the previous one lapsed in December, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
Indonesia has restricted raw material exports to pressure companies to refine minerals locally and add value to its exports. Freeport has local refining capacity, but is seeking to keep exporting concentrate due to a fire last October at its Manyar smelterin East Java.
The miner will start loading cargoes destined for China on Friday in anticipation of receiving an export licence by month end, according to one source with direct knowledge of the matter.
A shipment of copper concentrate from the company’s mine at Grasberg, the world’s second largest active copper mine, is expected to depart by late February, a second source said.
“Storage is becoming a big problem. We need to start shifting it,” the first source said.
Indonesia’s trade ministry said last week it would support Freeport resuming copper concentrate exports.
PT Freeport Indonesia did not respond to questions about the shipments sent via text. A spokesperson said separately they expected the government would accommodate a plan to resume exports.
Indonesia’s mining ministry did not respond to questions about the shipments from Reuters sent via text message.
Freeport presold cargoes of copper concentrate in January with a contingent claim that the contracts will take effect only if they successfully renew their export licence, said a third source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Should exports resume, it will relieve, although not reverse, a shortage of copper concentrate that has hit the profits of smelters.
Treatment charges – fees paid by miners to smelters for converting raw materials into metal – stood at a negative $12.5 a ton on February 7, the lowest level yet recorded in information provider Fastmarkets’ index tracing data back to 2013.
(Reporting by Amy Lv in Beijing and Pratima Desai in London; Additional reporting by Fransiska Nangoy in Jakarta; Editing by Lewis Jackson in Beijing and Jan Harvey)
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