PT Timah ready to acquire Koba Tin

IDX-listed tin producer PT Timah stated that it was ready to acquire Koba Tin after having its tin mining contract in Bangka island ended next year.

PT Timah President Director Soekrisno pointed out that his company would take over 100 percent of Koba Tin?s shares if necessary. But he suggested that it would be better if a local-administration-owned firm was also given a portion of ownership in Koba Tin.

?Now PT Timah has a 25 percent ownership in Koba Tin. We can increase our ownership up to 100 percent. But I think, a local firm?s participation will be better. We?re waiting for the government?s decision,? he said as quoted by Bisnis Indonesia on Friday.

Previously, the energy and mineral resources ministry?s Mineral and Coal Director General Thamrin Sihite said that the government would end the mining contract of Koba Tin, considering that it was not efficient.

He said that the government was now in a process of designing a structure of ownership in the Koban Tin mining contract, a second generation contract signed on October 16, 1973, which was extended in 2003 for another 10 years by former minister of energy and mineral resources, Purnomo Yusgiantoro.(*)