Refleksi : Hebat rejekinya. Tuan tanah, eh rakyat Sumbawa dapat apa?
http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2146&Itemid=226 Indonesia's Bakrie Takes a Mining Prize Written by Our Correspondent Monday, 16 November 2009 One of the world's richest gold and copper mines appears set to end up with the Bakrie interests Control of one of the richest prizes in the mining world - the US-based Newmont Mining Corp's US$4 billion Batu Hijau copper and gold mine on the remote island of Sumbawa, 1,500 kilometers east of Jakarta in Indonesia - appears likely to fall into the hands of companies headed by Aburizal Bakrie, the politically powerful head of the Golkar party. In March, an international arbitration court ordered the consortium owning the mine to divest 51 percent of its stake. The consortium, called PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, was 45 percent owned by Newmont as operator, 35 percent by Japan-based Sumitomo Corp, and Indonesian interests, which held the rest. Under the Contract of Work signed when the consortium won the concession, Newmont and Sumitomo were required to sell a controlling interest to qualified domestic entities before the end of March 2010. Twenty percent has previously been sold to Pukuafu Indah, a local Indonesian group.The next major chunk - 10 percent -- was officially sold Friday for US$391 million to a consortium of local governments and a company affiliated with the Bakrie group after the state-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang, better known as Antam, quit the consortium because the consortium members - three local governments and PT Multicapital, a Bakrie group affiliate - were unable to agree on the composition of the ownership. That raised questions whether government forces aligned with the powerful Bakrie interests compelled Antam to give up its quest to take an interest in the mine. However, Antam president director Alwinsyah Lubis told reporters that Antam, as the government's representative, wanted at least half of the stake up for sale. The local governments - West Nusa Tenggara province and the districts of Sumbawa and West Sumbawa - rejected the proposal, and Antam decided to withdraw, Lubis said. "It was not suited to our business strategy," he said. Newmont's divestment process began in 2006, after years of strained relations between the national and state governments. In 2007, the Nusa Tenggara provincial government threatened to shut the mine if the contract to sell wasn't honored. Although Bakrie interests repeatedly said they weren't interested in the mine, Newmont made public a memo in 2007 that indicated PT Bumi Resources Tbk, Bakrie's massive coal mining operation, was seeking to fund the governments of West Nusa Tenggara, Sumbawa and West Sumbawa as part of an effort to take over the stake in mining venture. In April, Dileep Srivastava, Bumi's head of investor relations, denied any interest in the venture, telling local media: "Our position is the same as last year. We are not interested in buying the shares." The question is whether the local government interests are mere stalking horses for Bakrie. In any case, the probable takeover, whatever share Bakrie takes, demonstrates that, despite the fact that his companies wrecked the Indonesian stock market at the outset of the global financial crisis in late 2008 and endured massive losses that cost Bakrie his standing as Indonesia's richest man, he has lost none of his clout. With Antam out of the picture, Multicapital would get 75 percent of the ownership and the dividends, with the three local governments taking the rest. The Nusa Tenggara mine is the second-richest in Indonesia after the American-controlled Freeport McMoRan copper-gold mine in Papua, which began operations in 1967 and is probably the world's single richest mine. Newmont finished construction of the Batu Hijau operation in 1999 after 10 years of exploration, with commercial production beginning in 2000. It is one Newmont's lowest-cost operations. The mine, according to the Denver-based company's third-quarter results, expects to produce 225,000 ounces of gold in 2009 and 210-230 million pounds of copper. The cost of mining gold, the company said, is expected to be US$200-220 per ounce. Gold was selling Friday on the London Metal Exchange for US$1,106 per ounce. The cost of mining copper, the company said, was between US.50¢ and $0.65¢. Copper on the LME was selling for US$2.95 per pound. At current production rates, the reserves are expected to last another 15 years. Bakrie, formerly Indonesia's Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare, was expected by some reformers to lose sway with the government after a long series of crises in which the government either stepped in to rescue him or the courts refused to move against him when creditors were baying at his heels. He appears to have survived handily. After former Vice President Jusuf Kalla lost a quixotic bid to become president under the Golkar Party banner in July, finishing a distant third to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Bakrie took over the reins of the splintered party. Once the country's dominant party when the former strongman Suharto was in power, Golkar is badly weakened, but insiders say Bakrie's continuing support for Yudhoyono when Kalla ripped apart the ruling coalition with his presidential bid has earned him considerable good will in the state palace. As they were prior to the 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis, and again in 2007 prior to the global credit crisis, the Bakrie companies remain saddled with huge debt. But investors don't seem concerned. Bakrie has been rescued before and now, after maneuvering Golkar into alignment with the government in the presiding coalition, he seems a personally golden as the Newmont mine. Bakrie-allied stocks have zoomed upwards in 2009. "Obviously Bakrie has more and more power in the country's mining sector," Pri Agung Rakhmanto, an energy analyst from the Reforminer Institute, told the Jakarta Globe. See also: Indonesia's Bakrie Lives to Fight Another Day An Awards Dinner's Unlucky Year [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
