SUPPLY NEWS - PT Timah workers to strike this week over tin seabed mining cuts

print Print this document.  Post this story to Facebook.
Archie Hunterarchie.hunter@fastmarkets.comDeputy Head of Physicals+44 (0) 20 7337 2143

London 26/01/2016 - Workers at Indonesian state-owned tin producer PT Timah will strike this week in protest against local government pressure to limit the company's offshore mining activity.

"The workers are striking because the governor asked us to stop operations in three offshore mining areas - they are asking the governor to withdraw the letter," company representative Agung Nugroho said on Tuesday. "It will affect around 30 percent of our offshore mining area if it is stopped."

PT Timah produced 26,000 tonnes of tin in 2015 and is one of the largest smelters of the metal in the world. Indonesia itself is the world's biggest exporter of tin by country.

Offshore mining of tin in Indonesia - where ships dredge the sea bed near the resource-rich islands of Banka-Belitung, is a controversial activity due to its damaging effect on the local environment.

Companies mining tin in this way must pay money to local communities or invest in the local area by building schools or maintain roads to be allowed to exploit resources. But several landowning communities have recently rejected payment and refused to allow mining on their sea-bed concessions.

"We have to arrange a meeting with the people who refuse our operations. Once this is settled we will resume mining," Nugroho said.

The local government is unwilling to act due to imminent regional elections in the state, sources said, while others warned that this latest rejection of seabed mining could spread to other areas of the country.

"If this is supported, I'm sure others will follow," a tin smelting source in the region said.

 

(Editing by Mark Shaw)



Fastmarkets.com
mailto:press@fastmarkets.com
8 Bouverie Street, London, EC4Y 8AX, UK
+44 (0)845 241 9949