JAKARTA - PT Archi Indonesia Tbk (ARCI) wrapped up 2021 with optimism for a stronger business prospect in 2022. Despite affected by the pandemic, ARCI was able to maintain its business continuity throughout 2021, including in exploration, mining, and sales activities in its downstream operations.
In 2021, ARCI has successfully opened a new pit namely the Alaskar Pit and completed the development of the Araren Pit stage 5, both of which contain higher average in gold grades, and are projected to become the largest contributor for the gold ore reserves to be processed in 2022 and beyond. In addition, various cost- efficiency and productivity-enhancing initiatives have also been carried out, including the addition of mining fleets, which include 18 trucks with a 100-ton capacity and 2 excavators with a 120-ton capacity. Furthermore, in 2021, ARCI also concluded an agreement to change its contractors for Drill & Blast activities from previously PSI and Orica to Hanwa and DNX, which are expected to provide savings in mining costs savings in the years to come.
On the other hand, ARCI has also completed the gold processing plant capacity expansion project from 3.6 million tons per year (mtpa) by the end of 2020 to 4.0mtpa by the end of 2021. The company targets to further increase the plant’;s capacity again in 2022 into 4.8mtpa. This increase in plant capacity reflects ARCI's commitment to implement its business plan that had been delivered since the Initial Public Offering (“IPO”) in mid-2021, which is to increase ARCI's annual production volume and realize positive business growth in the long run.
ARCI President Director, Ken Crichton, said “Our initiatives not only have the potential to increase our mining and production throughput, but also have the potential to provide efficiency in fuel consumption and overall mining costs. In addition, new strategic partnerships for Drill & Blast activities, based on our internal research, is expected to drive cost efficiencies of up to US$30 million over the next 5 years.”
On the exploration activities, ARCI is currently conducting a feasibility study to prepare for the construction of a new operational area in the Western Corridor. With this infrastructure development, it will accelerate ARCI exploration activities so that it has the potential to find significant additional mineral resources and ore reserves which are expected to occur in 2023, thus that the mining process in the Western Corridor is expected to be carried out starting 2024. To date, ARCI has conducted exploration and gold mining in 15% of its total concession area of 40,000 hectares, mainly in the Eastern Corridor. (LM)