Indonesia evaluating mining rules as deadline on metal exports nears

Jakarta

INDONESIA'S mining ministry is scrambling to find a way around a deadline on mineral processing that could prevent some miners, including US copper mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Inc, from exporting minerals from the country from 2017.

Under a government regulation introduced in 2014, miners of copper, zinc, lead, manganese and iron are restricted to exporting partially processed minerals until January 2017, after which only shipments of refined metals will be allowed.