With the deadline fast approaching, details on a regulation that will impose a total ban on the export of unrefined mineral ore are becoming more obscure.

 

Industry Minister MS Hidayat dismissed reports on Thursday that the government had made a decision on the matter.

 

“We will only make a decision at the Presidential Office on Jan. 11,” the minister said. “Any indicative figures that may have been disclosed so far, would be false.”

 

BeritaSatu previously reported thatmining firms and the government had reached an agreement to lower the purity requirement for refined copper before it can be exported to 90 percent from 99 percent, quoting Indonesia Gold and Copper Association chief Natsir Mansyur.

 

It was also reported that miners would be allowed to export 15-percent copper concentrate, a decision that will benefit smaller firms — holding mining business permits — and mining giants operating under contracts of work, such as Freeport Indonesia, a unit of US-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold that operates the Grasberg mine in Papua, and Newmont Nusa Tenggara, the subsidiary of US-based Newmont Mining that has mining rights over Batu Hijau and Elang mines in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara. Both companies export 20 percent to 30 percent copper concentrate and send some of their production for refinement to Indosmelt, currently the only smelter in Indonesia.

 

Hidayat said the government had yet to take a final decision. He also denied that the government was constantly changing its stance on the matter.

 

“What happens is that our discussion was never far off from our agreement to ban ore exports,” he added.

 

The government enacted a new mining law in 2009 that will impose a ban on the export of unrefined minerals from this month, in an effort to add value to the nation’s natural resources.

 

But the law has proven to be unpopular among miners, who had to face declining profitability amid a drop in commodity prices.

 

Some processing facilities have been built since 2009, mostly initiated by state-controlled miner, Aneka Tambang.

 

Miners such as Freeport Indonesia and Newmont Nusa Tenggara had sought for an extension of the deadline in order to comply with the law.

 

Indonesia stands to lose $5 billion in state revenue in the short term if the government goes ahead with the ban.