Vedanta to exclude base metals business from sweeping demerger
The group said it will consider the base metals business demerger at a later stage.
A fire at the sulphuric acid unit at Freeport Indonesia’s Manyar smelter in Gresik, East Java province, was brought under control on Monday, a company spokesperson said, adding that no casualties had been reported.
The company will assess the damage and evaluate the cause of the incident once the area is safe to enter, spokesperson Katri Krisnati said.
The $3.7 billion copper smelter was completed in June and had been expected to produce a first batch of output in September, however due to water and steam leakage during an initial test period, production has been delayed until November, Reuters reported last month.
The smelter has annual input capacity of 1.7 million metric tons of copper concentrate, which could produce around 900,000 tons of copper cathode, 50 tons of gold and 210 tons of silver a year.
“The fire that occurred Monday October 14 at around 1745 (GMT+7) in the sulphuric acid unit of the Freeport Indonesia smelter in the Gresik Special Economic Zone has now been successfully controlled,” Katri said.
(By Bernadette Christina and Ananda Teresia; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alison Williams)
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