Indonesia’s tin production may not reach 90,000 tonnes this year amid slowing global demand, a director general at the energy ministry told Reuters on Wednesday. The government said in February that it expected tin production to rise to 105,000 tonnes from the previous year. “We initially planned to limit production at 105,000 tonnes. But real production this year may not reach 90,000 tonnes as demand is slowing so production has to adjust,” said Bambang Setiawan, the ministry’s director general of mineral, geothermal and coal.
Meanwhile another official at the same ministry denied local news reports saying that it has abandoned plans for a quota on tin production. There have been delays, but the government will proceed with the plan, Bambang Gatot Ariyono told Metal Bulletin. No consensus has yet been reached on how production will be restrained or which government bodies will impose the regulation, he said. “The government is for example still discussing whether the quota plan will take the form of ministerial regulation, or provincial-level laws.” Discussions are continuing on how to distribute production quotas among the producers, he added. The final decision will come out “soon, most probably by June,” said Ariyono. Indonesian officials and producers have been talking for two years about imposing quotas.
Last week the country’s trade ministry issued an export licence to private smelter PT Refined Bangka Tin, bringing the number of companies with licences to 24. However many private smelters are not in operation or are producing at low rates of capacity utilisation. The consortium which includes the three largest independent smelters, Bangka Belitung Timah Sejahtera (BBTS) continues to operate at below half of its capacity of 3,000 to 4,000 tpm, according to MB. If not for falling fuel prices, it would not be profitable even to mine, said BBTS director Patris Lumumba, adding that it pays its local miners 75,000 rupiah ($6.7) per kg of tin ore. Meanwhile PT Timah has re-affirmed earlier reports that its output this year will drop to 45,000 – 48,000 tonnes and could fall further if prices remain low.
