Gulf Minerals says smelter construction timing on track

By Romel S. Gurky

ASX-listed Gulf Minerals Corporation Limited (GMC) welcomes the Indonesian government?s new policy to expedite investment/business licenses under the so-called ?one stop shop? of the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

The company said in a statement Monday that this bodes well for its planned ferromanganese smelter project in West Timor.

Gulf's CEO, Bruce Morrin, commented...."the new Presidential Decree to fast track Government dealings into one Ministry with a "can do approach" is like a breath of fresh air and certainly will facilitate much quicker approvals for projects thereby creating many jobs for local nationals as well in our case significant export income into the traditionally poorer area of West Timor while at the same time building shareholder value?

Gulf has earlier said it plans to build two electric ARC furnaces each year commencing 2015 for a total of 8 furnaces over a 4 year period. Each furnace will have a capacity of 20,000 tons of manganese alloy per year with a capital cost of US$5.6 million per furnace.

Gulf said in the Monday statement that the only issues remaining to be completed in relation to the smelter project were land acquisition, initial power supply, environmental clearance, and smelter license.

Land
An agreement was reached for Gulf to be granted a 50 year lease, on an annual fee basis, for 30 hectares in the West Timor industrial area Bolok, 10 kilometers from the capital Kupang and 5 kilometers from the Port of Tenau.

Power
State-owned power firm PLN advises they can supply, on a user pay basis, grid power for the first stage development while Gulf constructs its own coal fired power station.

Environmental
As the leased land is a gazetted industrial area and has an overriding Environmental Approval all that will be required is an Environmental Management Effort and Environmental Monitoring Effort colloquially called an UKL?UPL. This will reduce the approval time period down from some 9 months to less than 2.

Smelter
Both the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) have undertaken to issue a licence within 3 months of an application to the recently created by Presidential Decree "one stop shop" of the BKPM. This fast track process has been put in place to enable foreign investors? swift Government dealings by combining the approval process of 22 Ministries and Departments.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak