Surabaya. The new copper smelter belonging to copper and gold miner Freeport Indonesia in Gresik, East Java, will have a capacity of 1 million tons of copper cathode a year, the company’s CEO said on Friday.

The amount is enough to build 8,000 Airbus A380 giant planes, Tony Wenas said during the Investor Daily Roundtable in Surabaya.

"In addition, [the smelter] in East Java will produce 50-60 tons of gold a year," Tony said.

Copper cathode is also the main material for the production of solar panels, which could produce 200 gigawatts of electricity if all production output is allocated for that purpose, he added.

He claimed that Freeport’s smelter allows Indonesia to become one of the world’s biggest copper producers, sharing the fifth position with Russia.

China remains the world’s biggest copper cathode producer with a capacity of 12 million tons a year, followed by Chile in a distant second with 2 million tons, Congo with 1.9 million tons, and Japan with 1.5 million tons.