United Company RUSAL (the world’s largest producer of aluminum and alum earth) reports it has signed a memorandum of intent with ANTAM, the state-owned Indonesian company. The paper dwells upon the project to set up a joint venture that would put up a bauxite and alumina facility in Indonesia. According to some preliminary estimates, the facility’s throughput is believed to come to some 3.6 million tons of bauxites and 1.2 million tons of alumina a year, UC RUSAL’s press officer in the Urals Roman Lukichev said to UrBC.

The memorandum, signed in Jakarta on September 6, 2007 within the course of Russian President Valdimir Putin’s official visit to Indonesia, states that the two parties have agreed to construct the facility next to a bauxite occurrence in West Kalimantan.

UC RUSAL is to own 51% of the joint venture’s stock, ANTAM is to be in control of 49% of the company’s shares. The two parties are planning on setting up an ad hoc team within September, with the responsibilities of this team covering testifying the presence of bauxites in two chosen deposits with the help of an independent assessor and drawing up all the documents needed to set up a joint venture. UC RUSAL and ANTAM intend to complete all the preparatory work related to feasibility studies in 2008.

UC RUSAL’s GD Alexander Bulygin says,’ Today, Asia is one of the world’s most dynamically developing regions as well as one of the fastest-growing markets. Indonesia, with its favorable investment climate, is a very attractive country to develop one’s business in. I am positive that our cooperation with ANTAM is going to both promote the emergence of modern high-tech industries in Indonesia and give UC RUSAL a chance to build up its position within this region through a significant expansion of our resource base.’

The project costs are to be determined within the framework of the banking feasibility report that is expected to be finished in 2009. The construction itself is supposed to begin in 2009, with the first portion of alumina to be produced in 2011.

In addition, UC RUSAL and ANTAM are making some long-term plans connected with cooperating in the fields of electricity and aluminum production.