August 26, 2024 - PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) has announced plans to officially begin production at its Gresik copper smelter facility this week.  Tony Wenas, the President Director of PTFI, said that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will inaugurate the smelter’s first production.  “The smelter in Gresik is operational and ready for production. We hope the President can inaugurate it next week,” Tony said on Thursday, August 22, 2024.  However, Tony noted that the inauguration date is still tentative and depends on the president’s availability.  Tony reported that the investment in building the Manyar copper smelter reached US$3.7 billion (Rp58 trillion).  “This is one of the significant investments and adds to the portfolio for the Minister of Investment, showing the investment made by PTFI here,” Tony Wenas said on June 27, 2024.  The Manyar smelter is located within the Java Integrated Industrial Estate (JIIPE) Special Economic Zone in Gresik, East Java. Tony described constructing this smelter as a major challenge.  He noted that the Manyar smelter is the world’s largest single-line copper smelter, with a capacity to process up to 1.7 million tons of copper concentrate. This capacity will produce 650,000 tons of copper cathode.  Additionally, the Manyar smelter can produce by-products such as sulfuric acid, slag, gypsum, and lead.

September 27, 2023 - President Director of Freeport Tony Wenas reported the progress development of a copper smelter in Gresik, East Java. "At the end of August [the development] reached 76% of progress," he said when met at Safe Forum 2023 in Jakarta on Tuesday, September 26, 2023.  "Hopefully, the physical construction of this smelter will reach 100% at the end of the year and begin operation in May 2024," he explained.  Earlier in 2021, Freeport Indonesia kick-started the development of Gresik Smelter and targeted the finalization for next year. The smelting factory is said to have a 1.7 million tonnes per year production capacity and 6,000 tonnes per year production capacity of precious metal refinery.  Meanwhile, the smelter will produce copper cathodes, gold and silver bullion bars, platinum group metals, and additional products such as sulfuric acid, gypsum, lead, and slag.  The Freeport smelter is projected to produce 600,000 tonnes of copper, 50 tonnes of gold, and 210 tonnes of silver each year.  Freeport Indonesia through this project has realized US$2.2 billion of investment through May 2023. The smelter has also absorbed US$3 billion. 

July 21, 2021 - Metso Outotec has signed a major engineering and technology contract as well as licence agreements for the delivery of what it says is a landmark copper smelter complex to be built in Gresik, East Java, in Indonesia.  The project owner is PT Freeport Indonesia, with PT Chiyoda International Indonesia being the engineering, procurement and construction contractor. Four-fifths of the approximately €360 million ($424 million) contract has been booked in the company’s Metals’ September quarter order intake and the rest in Minerals’ September quarter order intake, it said.  Metso Outotec’s scope of delivery is based on the licensed Metso Outotec Flash Smelting, Flash Converting and Lurec® technology. It includes the design and supply of key process equipment and process control systems for the main areas of the smelter complex, the copper electrolytic refinery, the gas cleaning and sulphuric acid plant, the slag concentrator and the effluent treatment plant.  Metso Outotec has previously provided certain front-end engineering design and other advance engineering services for this 1.7 Mt/y copper concentrate smelter complex, which is expected to be commissioned in 2024. According to PT Freeport, the Manyar smelter will be the largest copper processing site in the world upon start up.  Pekka Vauramo, President & CEO, Metso Outotec, said: “Our joint efforts with Freeport Indonesia and Chiyoda will set a new standard for the copper smelter industry in fulfilling the strictest international environmental standards and efficiency requirements. We are very happy to work together to implement this game changing copper smelter.”  Jari Ålgars, President, Metals business area at Metso Outotec, added: “We have worked with Freeport Indonesia and Chiyoda for several years to ensure and select the best available process design and technologies for the Manyar project.”  Metso Outotec has delivered 51 Copper Flash Smelters around the world, with the company’s Copper Flash Smelting the most widely applied technology for copper smelting in the world, it said. The solution is also one of its Planet Positive solutions. Using this technology, Metso Outotec’s customers avoided more than 1.6 Mt of CO2 emissions in 2020, the company said. 

February 12, 2015 - Papua Governor Lukas Enembe and a team from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and other relevant ministries will conduct a survey of potential locations for the construction of miner PT Freeport Indonesia’s smelter in Papua.  “A team from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and other relevant ministries will conduct a field survey on Friday to look for a suitable location for the smelter’s construction, but the most important [thing] is that the smelter has to be built in Papua,” Antara news agency quoted Lukas saying Thursday in Biak, West Papua.  The Governor stressed it was in Papua's interest to have the smelter constructed in the province, as it would generate more job opportunities and would boost the economy in the province, including tax revenue for the government.  He added that the provincial government had identified two locations for the smelter; one in Biak Numfor regency, Papua and one in Bintuni regency,West Papua.  After suspending its cooperation with state-owned PT Aneka Tambang and Newmont Nusa Tenggara (NNT), Freeport decided to establish the smelter in Pasuruan, East Java. The smelter’s establishment is obligatory, as the government no longer allows miners to export mineral concentrates overseas in an effort to create added-value for the country.  With political pressure from the Papuan provincial government and citizens, the House of Representatives recently lobbied the government to demand Freeport abandon the plan in East Java and recommit to establishing the smelter in Papua.