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Almost 25m tonnes of the liquid has already been deposited on the land bank adjacent since the plant’s opening, leading to concern from farmers and other locals.

Indonesia wants to have 63 processing and refining plants for minerals such as copper, lead, bauxite, iron, nickel and manganese by 2017, a senior government official said.

Making one tonne of aluminium requires about two tonnes of alumina. The production of two tonnes of alumina creates two to four tonnes of red mud or bauxite residue, which is presently regarded as waste from the Bayer process - but it is potentially a valuable resource. The production of 200,000,000 tonnes of red mud every year has a serious effect on the environment. For now, technology enables us to store the residue harmlessly, but this does not remove the problem.

Mined copper production was up 36 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2008 with higher production at all operations, notably at Escondida and Grasberg. Refined copper production was up 15 per cent on the fourth quarter of 2008 following higher concentrate grades and a further improvement in performance at Kennecott Utah Copper. Mined gold production exceeded 1.1 million ounces in 2009, 141 per cent above 2008, attributable to higher grades at Kennecott Utah Copper and Grasberg. Production cutbacks were maintained in the Aluminium group in response to market conditions. Bauxite production was down one per cent, alumina down two per cent and aluminium down three per cent, compared with the fourth quarter of 2008. At the end of 2009 Rio Tinto Alcan’s annual run rate was nine per cent lower than at the start of the year.