TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto will inaugurate a smelter or gold refining facility through Precious Metal Refinery (PMR) owned by PT Freeport Indonesia in Gresik, East Java, on Monday, March 17, 2025. Deputy of Protocol, Press, and Media of the Presidential Secretariat, Yusuf Permana, stated that the Head of State will depart this afternoon.
“The President is scheduled to depart in the afternoon to Gresik Regency to inaugurate the PMR plant owned by PT Freeport Indonesia,” he said in an official statement on Monday, March 17, 2025.
He said that PMR is a facility for refining anode sludge using the world’s largest hydrometallurgy process. PMR is also the world’s first modern gold refining facility that is integrated from upstream (mining and processing) to downstream (refining).
According to Yusuf, the inauguration indicates the government’s commitment to expedite the downstream process in the country.
After that, Prabowo will depart to Sidoarjo Regency and continue the inauguration agenda of 17 stadiums in various regions in Indonesia, which will be centered in Sidoarjo, East Java.
Prior to this, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto stated that PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) is ready to produce gold up to 60 tons in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Gresik. He mentioned that Gresik serves as a successful example of the SEZ project, as it is capable of downstreaming copper and ultimately producing the final product, gold.
Airlangga explained that the US mining company PTFI has almost zero gold production from 1967 to 2024. However, now with the PMR processing facility located in Gresik, Freeport can produce 60 tons of gold annually.
“There is a success story of the Special Economic Zone in Gresik, where we can downstream copper, including producing the final product through precious metal refinery, which can yield 60 tons of gold per year,” he said at the SEZ Business Forum held at the St. Regis hotel, South Jakarta on Monday, December 9, 2024.
Nabiila Azzahra contributed to this report.
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