1) Freeport Mine in Indonesia May Shut for Three Months on Probe
2) Indonesia’s worst mining disaster raises questions for Freeport mine
3) Freeport Worker Dies in Latest Mine Accident
4) Ambassador Denies Paying Indonesians to Rally in Support of SBY
2) Indonesia’s worst mining disaster raises questions for Freeport mine
3) Freeport Worker Dies in Latest Mine Accident
4) Ambassador Denies Paying Indonesians to Rally in Support of SBY
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/freeport-mine-in-indonesia-may-shut-for-three-months-on-probe/
1) Freeport Mine in Indonesia May Shut for Three Months on Probe
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold’s production in Indonesia will be shut during a government probe into accidents at its Grasberg mine that may take as long as three months, boosting concern over global supply.
Output will be halted from both its open pit and underground operations at the site, the world’s second-largest copper mine, said Thamrin Sihite, director general of coal and minerals at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, at a conference in Bali on Monday. The company is allowed to ship ore concentrate from stockpiles, he said.
The deposit, located in Papua province, usually produces 220,000 metric tons of ore a day, Rozik B. Soetjipto, president director of Freeport Indonesia, said May 22. The lost output amounts to 680 tons of copper a day, based on Bloomberg calculations using data in the annual report. Investigators are seeking the causes of a tunnel collapse on May 14 that killed 28 people. Another worker died on June 1 from a separate accident when wet ore covered a truck.
“Exports mean nothing if there are lots of people dead,” Dede Suhendra, the ministry’s director of minerals, said in Jakarta on Monday.
“Production activities must stop,” he said, adding the probe that started on May 22 may take three months.
Copper in London advanced 0.4 percent to $7,335 a metric ton on Monday, after increasing 3.6 percent in May. Inventories monitored by the London Metal Exchange fell last month for the first time since September.
Presidential order
Suhendra from the mining ministry said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had ordered a comprehensive check of all mines in the country, which is one of the world’s top exporters of tin, thermal coal and nickel.
Freeport can’t give a date to restart work and needs to seek permission from the mining ministry before resuming, said Daisy Primayanti, vice president of corporate communications at Freeport Indonesia.
“We will cooperate with the government in our effort to resume our operation,” Primayanti said on Sunday. Freeport had restarted some work at Grasberg’s open pit mine on May 28, the company said in a statement last week.
The workers have refused to return until Freeport suspends officials believed to be responsible for the May 14 accident, Virgo Solossa, head of the Mimika branch of the All Indonesian Workers Union in the Chemical, Energy and Mining Sectors, said May 30.
Bloomberg
------------------------------------------------------------
http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatbusiness/2013/06/02/indonesias-worst-mining-disaster-raises-questions-for-freeport-mine/
2) Indonesia’s worst mining disaster raises questions for Freeport mine
by Paul Maidment in Asia-Pacific.
World copper prices have been propped up by a halt in production at the world’s second largest copper mine after a fatal accident there on May 14. The Indonesian government has just told Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold that it cannot resume operations at its Grasberg mine complex high in the remote mountains of eastern Indonesia until an official investigation is completed into the collapse of a training cavern that killed 28 miners. The cave-in at Big Gossan, the underground part of the Grasberg complex, was the country’s worst mining disaster. A truck driver died in an unrelated underground accident on May 31.
The inquiry into the May 14 disaster will likely take two months. Mining companies typically have up to four weeks-worth of stocks to cover supply interruptions, so the government’s decision raises questions about how long the company can continue to supply its customers. During a strike at the mine in 2011, Freeport declared force majeure (letting it suspend contracted deliveries without penalty because of exceptional circumstances) after one month.
The company had halted all operations at Grasberg for two weeks after the first accident and had just restarted some limited work before this latest government order to shut down. At full production, Grasberg produces 220,000 metric tons of copper ore a day or about 1.5% of global copper mine output. Only BHP Billiton’s Escondida mine in Chile operates on a bigger scale. Globally, stockpiles are at a decade high, and industry forecasts are for a small surplus of supply over demand this year. The world could get by for now without Grasberg’s output. The economic slowdown in China, the world’s largest copper consumer, accounting for 40% of global demand, has come at an opportune time.
Freeport’s senior managers, no doubt, would prefer to be devoting their time to digesting two big energy acquisitions, of Plains Exploration and McMoRan Exploration, and executing their plans to double Grasberg’s output. Freeport wants to turn the mine into the world’s biggest underground mining complex once its open-pit mining, which accounts for two-thirds of current production — the pit is a mile-wide crater — stops as planned in 2016. As well as copper, the mine holds the world’s largest gold reserves.
An even longer term question is what impact the accident may have on Freeport’s negotiations to extend its contract with the Indonesian government beyond 2021. There have been long simmering local concerns that the country does not benefit sufficiently from the extraction of its natural resources. The Grasberg operation has been bit with periodic violent attacks. These have intermingled with long-standing demands for self-determination from the local Papuan population who want independence from Jakarta. It is similar to what has happened in Nigeria’s Niger delta over that country’s oil wealth, in that respect, if on a much smaller scale. Eleven Grasberg workers died in clashes with authorities during a strike in 2011 for better wages.
There is also a possibility, if a remote one, that the question of mine safety in developing nations could catch the public imagination in rich countries in the same way that manufacturing sweatshop conditions did after the collapse of a building housing several textile factories in Bangladesh and the suicides at Foxconn’s iPad- and iPhone-making plants in China. Even before the May 14 disaster, 11 Freeport workers had died in landslides at the open-pit mine since 2003. The workers’ union, which represents 18,000 of the 24,000 workers at Grasberg, has said its members will not return to work until the accident inquiry is complete and safety standards improved.
Nor is the issue an open and shut one for the government. It owns 9% of Freeport Indonesia, the Freeport-McMoRan subsidiary that operates Grasberg. Mining accounts for 12% of Indonesia’s economy.
-----------------------------------------------------
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/freeport-worker-dies-in-latest-mine-accident/
3) Freeport Worker Dies in Latest Mine Accident
[Updated at 8:11 a.m. on Monday, June 3, 2013]
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold reported another death at its Grasberg mining site in Papua since a deadly tunnel collapse in mid-May, this time at its underground deep ore mining zone.
It was reported that Herman Wahid, a South Sulawesi native and long-time truck driver at the mine, was buried by sludge during the collapse on Friday of an underground tunnel where maintenance was taking place.
Herman was admitted to a nearby hospital in a critical condition. He died on Sunday, the company said.
“The doctors fought to save his life,” Freeport Indonesia president director Rozik Sucipto said in a press statement.
“We declare our deepest condolences to the family. [Herman] left behind a wife and three children.”
The company is investigating the cause of the accident, but said the underground mine was likely not up to Freeport safety standards for the handling of wet ore.
Friday’s fatal accident occurred just two weeks after a tunnel collapse killed 28 miners and injured 10 during a safety training exercise on May 14.
The two accidents are not related, Rozik said.
The government has ordered Freeport to cease operations until investigators finish the report into the first collapse.
The US-based mining giant suspended operations for two weeks, but had restarted some activities at its open-pit mine as of last week.
On Saturday, a government official said that Freeport would not be allowed to resume production at its huge copper and gold mine following the accident, adding to doubts as to how much longer the company can continue to supply the metals.
“On Thursday, the director general [of minerals and coal at the Energy and Mineral Resources ministry] issued a letter forbidding all production activity except for maintenance,” said chief mining inspector Syawaludin Lubis.
He gave no time frame for the ban.
Freeport suspended operations at its remote Grasberg complex on May 15, a day after the collapse of the training tunnel in what would be confirmed as one of Indonesia’s worst mining accidents.
Following the second collapse, a union leader called on workers to stop work at the world’s second-largest copper mine.
Kompas newspaper quoted the director general for minerals and coal, Thamrin Sihite, as saying the government had requested the temporary stoppage of production at both open-pit and underground mining while investigating the accident.
Prolonged closure could hit Freeport’s ability to supply its customers and global supplies of copper.
Freeport has not said how long its stockpiles of ore might last.
The company declared a force majeure on some concentrate sales about one month into a 2011 strike.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/ambassador-denies-paying-indonesians-to-rally-in-support-of-sby/
4) Ambassador Denies Paying Indonesians to Rally in Support of SBY
Indonesian Embassy officials denied claims that the office paid Indonesians living in the United States to rally in support of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as he accepted an award for his commitment to religious tolerance.
The Indonesian newspaper Koran Tempo ran an article claiming the supporters, many of them allegedly the families of consulate, embassy or central bank staff, were paid $100-a-head to rally in support of the president.
“The news is totally wrong,” said Dino Patti Djalal, Indonesia’s ambassador to the United States, in a press statement issued Sunday night. “Ask the Indonesian people who attended the gala dinner.”
A small crowd of approximately 60 supporters greeted Yudhoyono as he arrived at the Pierre Hotel, in New York, to accept a “World Statesman” award from the interfaith Appeal of Conscience Foundation (APF) last week.
Koran Tempo journalist Victoria Sidjabat was on location last Thursday covering the awards ceremony. Victoria interviewed the supporters after she was barred from entering the gala dinner without committing to staying inside for the entire evening.
“They told me that they wanted to support SBY because they loved SBY and they considered SBY a successful president deserving of the award,” Victoria said.
The supporters, she told the Jakarta Globe, seemed to rally as part of an effort to head off what Indonesian officials reportedly believed would be a large protest criticizing the foundation’s controversial decision to issue the award to Yudhoyono. Few admitted to following current events in Indonesia and said they knew little of reports of religious intolerance back home, Victoria said.
The Indonesian government has struggled to curb a rising tide of religious intolerance in recent years as religious minorities found themselves under attack from Islamic hard-line groups.
“I think the [pro-award] demonstration was prepared in anticipation of an anti-award demonstration which was predicted to involve many people,” Victoria said. “Actually many of them [anti-award protesters] suddenly decided not to show up.”
Less than a dozen people showed up in protest of the event. The protestors brandished signs showing the victims of religious violence against Shia and Ahmadiyah members and portraits of slain human rights activist Munir.
John M. Miller, national coordinator of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, was among the protestors outside the awards gala. He accused the foundation of polishing Yudhoyono’s image abroad when intolerance was in the rise in Indonesia.
“President Yudhoyono must not be allowed to polish his image while incidents of religious intolerance increase, the prospects for justice for past rights violations diminishes, and violations by Indonesia’s security forces continue,” Miller said in a recent e-mail to the Jakarta Globe.
The Indonesian Ambassador accused the protestors of offering money to those who rallied against Yudhoyono.
“Our people reported from trusted sources that there is an Indonesian calling up diaspora in US and asking them to join demonstrations against SBY in New York with $100 as payment,” Dino said.
The supporters denied receiving compensation from the embassy, Victoria said. The allegations surfaced days before the awards gala, although the source of the information remained unclear, she said.
“The source is not clear,” Victoria said. “When I interviewed people who were there to demonstrate, they denied it.”
Paying protestors to demonstrate is a common practice in Indonesia where “mass organizations” are available to rally in the interests of whoever provides food or cash as compensation.
Officials with the Appeal of Conscience Foundation have not responded to interview requests from the Jakarta Globe or Koran Tempo. Indonesian journalists traveling with the president were told they had to stick with Yudhoyono throughout the event, preventing reporters from interviewing the protestors outside, Victoria said.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.