Batan Isotop Plant In U.S. To Operate In 2017

Jakarta, June 11 (Antara) - PT Batan Teknologi in cooperation with US Babcock & Wilcox will set up a low-system uranium enrichment nuclear reactor to produce radioisotope in Virginia with an investment worth US$170 million. "The construction would be started in 2014 and the plant is expected to operate in early 2017 with a capacity of 4,000 curie per week," the state-owned company`s president director, Yudiutomo Ismardjoko, said after a seminar on financial business management here on Tuesday. He said the company is now still finishing the process of setting up the joint venture for the two companies` cooperation project. He said Batan Tek would hold 51 percent shares in the new company while Babcock & Wilcox 49 percent. Radioisotope is a chemical substance used in a nuclear medicine to detect cancer in the human body. Babcock & Wilcox is a US isotope company established since 1886 producing isotope for around 1,500 hospitals in that country. Yudiutomo said the reason why Babcock and Wilcox would like to cooperate with Batan was because the Batan Tek technology is the only one that could produce low-capacity nuclear enrichment in addition to the fact that the US also needs isotope in huge amount. "Everyday the US needs 6,000 curies per week while supply is not sufficient," he said. The US is one of the world`s biggest importers of isotope that include Japan and China. Right now only five countries produce isotope namely Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Australia. Indonesia is leading in the technology because it could produce with a low capacity technology but with a high quality. He said the world price of isotope has kept increasing due to increasing demand by 10 percent a year. "The normal price of isotope reaches US$500 per curie and it keeps increasing and it is expected to reach US$2,000 per curie due to increasing demand in the world," he said. Yudiutomo said the isotope production cost in Indonesia now is around US$70 per curie so it will be very profitable when sold at the market price of US$1,000 in the US. The current production at Batan Tek is used to meet the needs of 16 hospitals in the country and exported to nine countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and the US. "The nuclear reactor in Serpong (Tangerang, Banten province) is still too small and needs to be developed. One of our development efforts is setting up a plant in the US," he said. He did not tell how much the new plant in the US would contribute to the company`s earnings. Yudiutomo only said that in 2013 total revenue of Batan Tek would soar to around Rp200 billion up from around Rp50 billion in the year before.