A new copper and gold block enters public review, and the AMDAL is where its value gets defined

A new copper and gold block enters public review

Public consultation is the first formal moment at which a large Indonesian mining project has to describe itself in public, in detail, and on the record. On Tuesday 22 September 2026 the Elang block reached that moment. At La Grande Sumbawa in Sumbawa Besar, PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara (AMNT) presented its development plan and the scope of the environmental impact analysis, the AMDAL, for a copper and gold project roughly 56 kilometres east of the operating Batu Hijau mine, across territory belonging to both Sumbawa and West Sumbawa regencies.

The audience was not a narrow technical one. Provincial officials, members of the regency legislative council, village heads, religious figures and customary leaders attended alongside hundreds of participants drawn from government agencies and community organisations. The Regent of Sumbawa, Ir. H. Syarafuddin Jarot, M.P., opened the session and set out the standard he expects the process to meet.

"This is not merely a matter of meeting administrative requirements. Communities must receive information, and they must have room to express their aspirations, their questions and their concerns."

That framing matters more than it may appear. Under Indonesian environmental law, public consultation is a required input to the AMDAL rather than a courtesy attached to it. What communities say about land use, water sources, seasonal patterns and customary boundaries becomes part of the baseline the assessment is built on. Syamsul Kepli, Vice President at AMMAN, described the purpose in those terms, saying community knowledge of environmental conditions, social and cultural life, and the character of the area is an important input that enriches the AMDAL study. Kartika Octaviana, Vice President of Corporate Communications, said the company is committed to running the AMDAL preparation openly, transparently and participatively in line with applicable regulations.

The figures placed on the record

Regent Jarot put the initial investment at Rp6 trillion to Rp8 trillion, with a land requirement of more than 60 hectares. Construction of production facilities is targeted to begin in mid 2027, once the assessment stages and development requirements are complete. The project itself remains in the exploration phase today. AMNT set out a supporting scope covering transport access, energy and water supply, equipment operation and maintenance facilities, and worker support services. That supporting scope is usually where the real environmental footprint of a mine is decided, because haul roads, power and water infrastructure and camp facilities touch far more land and hydrology than the pit outline alone.

A second and much larger figure entered public discussion on the same day. Abdul Rafiq, S.H., M.Si., who chairs the PDI Perjuangan branch in Sumbawa regency, described investment across the construction phase as reaching about Rp80 trillion, and framed it as an opportunity for local employment, small enterprise growth and a larger revenue sharing allocation for the regency under prevailing rules. He put the point plainly, saying that investment and community interests are not opposing forces, and that development investment requires communication and collaboration.

The two figures are not in conflict once their scope is read carefully. Rp6 trillion to Rp8 trillion is the initial outlay described at the consultation. About Rp80 trillion is the cumulative construction phase figure cited by Rafiq. Coverage of the day did not reconcile the two explicitly, so they are best read as numbers describing different stages of the same project rather than as competing estimates of one thing. Noting that distinction openly is itself part of good valuation practice. Confusion between capital stages is one of the most common reasons public expectation and delivered benefit drift apart over the life of a project.

What the resource statement already says

Elang is not a speculative prospect. Company disclosure published on 25 March 2025, reporting a JORC statement as at 31 December 2024, recorded a substantial upgrade. The stated ore reserve rose to 2.5 billion tonnes from 1.4 billion tonnes, an increase of 79 percent. Contained copper rose to 17.8 billion pounds from 10.4 billion pounds, an increase of 71 percent. Contained gold rose to 26.4 million ounces from 15 million ounces, an increase of 76 percent. Kartika Octaviana described the significance at the time.

"The increase in reserves has the potential to significantly boost production and extend the mine life. This will not only have a positive impact on the business but also strengthen our contribution to the mining industry and the regional and national economies."

Three observations follow from those numbers. First, the size of the stated reserve means the AMDAL is being prepared for an asset with a long operating horizon, which makes the quality of the environmental baseline unusually consequential. Second, the reserve grew without new ground being mined. It grew because study work, drilling and economic assumptions changed. Value in mining is a statement about knowledge as much as about geology. Third, a reserve of that scale gives the regency a long planning horizon to work against, provided the measurement effort on the environmental side matches the measurement effort already invested in the orebody.

An AMDAL is a valuation document as well as a permit

Indonesian practice already contains the tools to treat it that way. Permen LH No. 7 Tahun 2014 sets out how environmental damage, environmental economic loss and recovery cost are calculated. Those calculations depend almost entirely on baseline data: land cover before disturbance, water quality before abstraction and discharge, soil condition, carbon stock, biodiversity, and the fisheries and agricultural output that surrounding communities actually derive from the landscape. An AMDAL prepared with that end use in mind produces a baseline that can later support a defensible number. An AMDAL prepared only to clear a permit hurdle produces a document that satisfies the file and little else.

The practical difference is measurable. Satellite and drone based mapping of land cover, hydrology and vegetation at the pre construction stage creates a dated, geo referenced record that can be compared year by year against reclamation progress. Ground data on water quality and biodiversity anchors that imagery in verified measurement. Together they give the regency, the province and the Ministry of Environment a shared factual basis, which is the condition under which questions about damage and recovery stay technical rather than becoming contests of assertion. For a project whose construction phase is targeted to begin in mid 2027, the window to establish that baseline is now, before the ground changes.

What the regency stands to measure, and to receive

Regent Jarot indicated that further discussion will cover local business empowerment, community involvement and compensation arrangements, and that all input received will be collected and brought back to government for verification against the commitments stated. Rafiq pointed toward revenue sharing, the mechanism by which mineral revenue returns to producing regions. Both threads depend on the same underlying capability. A regency that can measure what it hosts can negotiate on the basis of evidence, verify what is delivered against what was promised, and demonstrate to national government the size of the contribution it is making.

That capability is built early or not at all. Reclamation guarantee funds, post mining plans and rehabilitation targets are all priced against a baseline condition. If the baseline is thin, every later figure inherits that weakness, and the eventual cost of restoring a site becomes a matter of negotiation rather than calculation.

Sirkularium's view

The sequence on display in Sumbawa is a good one. A project of national scale opened its plans to public examination before construction, the regency government stated clearly that community benefit is the test it will apply, and the company committed to an open and participative assessment process. That is the order in which these steps should happen, and it gives every party time to get the measurement right.

For government and public institutions, the opportunity in the months ahead is specific. Use the AMDAL period to commission an independent environmental and economic baseline for the Elang area, combining remote sensing of land cover and hydrology with ground verification of water quality, soil and biodiversity, and express the result in the valuation terms Indonesian regulation already recognises. Establish who holds that data and how often it is refreshed. Agree at the outset how reclamation progress will be verified and by whom.

Sirkularium's consistent position is that rigorous economic valuation of resource activity is most valuable as ongoing practice, not as crisis response. Commissioned before construction, it gives a regency a defensible account of what it started with, gives an operator a documented record of its environmental performance, and gives the Ministry of Environment a verifiable basis for oversight. The Elang consultation on 22 September 2026 opened exactly that window. What to watch next is whether the AMDAL that emerges carries a baseline strong enough to price, and whether the revenue sharing discussion Rafiq raised is matched by an equivalent discussion about measurement.