Bre-X geologist's body still missing

Bre-X geologist's body still missing

JAKARTA (JP): East Kalimantan rescue workers searching for the body of Bre-X geologist Mike de Guzman returned to Balikpapan empty-handed last night.

De Guzman, a Filipino, fell out of a helicopter Wednesday afternoon on his way from Samarinda to the giant gold deposit in Muaraancalong he discovered in 1994.

The pilot, Eddy Tarsono, said that 17 minutes after take-off he heard a strong wind sweep into the helicopter before he realized that his de Guzman, the only passenger, had disappeared.

Chairman of the search and rescue team Sugijanto said it was suspected that Gusman fell into the thick forest or a swamp from a height of 800 feet.

Sugijanto, who is also the head of Samarinda's Temindung airport, said the rescuers were concentrating their operations on the Muarakaman district in Kutai regency.

He said the searchers -- comprising workers from the local Search and Rescue agency, the police, Bre-X, the Jakarta-based helicopter leasing company and local residents -- would resume their operations today.

The 43-year-old Filipino was the geologist who helped the Canadian mining company, Bre-X Minerals, find the giant gold deposit in Busang.

Together with fellow geologist John Felderhof, he spotted the potential of the Busang deposit, now recognized as one of the biggest in the world.

"De Guzman is believed to have been killed after falling from a height of 800 feet (240 meters)," Sugijanto said, adding that the geologist might have committed suicide.

"Police in Balikpapan are investigating a letter expected to contain de Guzman's testament," he told The Jakarta Post.

Azhar Mualim -- the executive director of PT. Indonesia Air Transport from which Bre-X leased the helicopter -- said there was a strong indication that de Guzman committed suicide.

Azhar referred an unconfirmed report that in a note found in one of his bags, de Guzman said he wanted to commit suicide for a reason yet to be determined.

"Another indication is that the helicopter's safety belts and sliding door were all okay."

The helicopter from which de Guzman tumbled, was a French-made Allouette III type. A mechanic, Andrian, was the only other person aboard.

De Guzman, Bre-X's operation manager, was interviewed about his first trips to the Busang deposit for the Far Eastern Economic Review's March 6 edition.

De Guzman, according to the magazine, was a geology graduate of Manila's Adamson University who came to Indonesia in 1986 to pioneer an in-depth study into the occurrence of gold deposits at the junction of fault lines -- part of an overall theory of how mineralized fluids are transported to the earth's surface.

He remembered first spotting an outcrop of yellowish volcanic rock in Busang in 1994.

"My brain was dead at the time because I had just done a difficult five-kilometer traverse," he told the magazine.

"But I wrote the words 'Check it out' on a strip of plastic ..."

He and his friend Felderhof later found a deposit containing at least 70 million ounces of gold worth more than Rp 50 trillion (US$20 billion).

Bre-X, a small Calgary-based exploration company, holds a 45 percent stake in the deposit after a complicated, behind-the- scenes bidding war. Freeport-McMoRan of New Orleans beat out two other Canadian gold mining giants, Barrick Gold and Placer Dome, to become the mine's operator.

Freeport-McMoRan has a 15 percent stake. Two local partners -- PT. Askatindo Karya Mineral and PT. Amsyalina -- hold 30 percent and the Indonesian government has a 10 percent interest. (aan)