Freeport to increase copper ore output
JAKARTA (JP): PT Freeport Indonesia Company (FI), an Indonesian-American copper firm, is likely to increase its daily copper ore production to 115,000 tons next year from 70,000 tons at present, a company report says.
The report said that the company anticipates producing some 499,000 tons of copper and 46.6 tons of gold per year.
FI, under the extension of its mining contract from the government, has expanded its concession area from merely 10,000 hectares to 2.6 million hectares in Irian Jaya. Its old concession area is called Bloc A and the expansion area Bloc B.
Bloc A is capable of producing 70,000 tons of ore daily, equivalent to 750,000 pounds of copper and 650,000 ounces of gold.
The report quoted James Robert Moffett, FI's chief commissioner and chairman of Freeport McMoRan Cooper & Gold Inc. (FCX) of the United States, as saying last week that FI recently identified new copper reserves in the Big Gossan area of Block A with probable deposits of 32 million tons with an average content of 2.9 percent of copper and 0.91 grams of gold per ton, or one million kilograms of copper and 28,000 kilograms of gold.
"The total Big Gossan geologic resource and proven reserve is now estimated to be larger than the original Ertsberg deposit discovered in 1967," Moffett said.
"Current estimates are that the Big Gossan deposit could be brought into production for less than US$130 million with development that could begin as early as late this year or early 1995," he added.
New deposit
He said that the company -- which is 80 percent owned by FCX, 10 percent by the Indonesian government and 10 percent by PT Indocopper Investama of the Bakrie Group -- also found another new deposit at the Lembah Tembaga area at an average of 1.3 percent of copper, 0.13 grams per ton of gold and nine grams per ton of silver, during its initial exploratory drilling.
At the 910-meter downhole, the company has found the stockwork copper mineralization at an average of 1.21 percent copper, 0.27 grams per ton of gold and 2.8 grams per ton of silver, he said.
The company, which has drilled four rigs at the Lembah Tembaga prospect area, now requires feasibility studies to determine the commercial level of the area, he said.
A FCS subsidiary, PT Irja Eastern Minerals Corp., which now holds a one-million hectare concession area in Irian Jaya, also drilled three rigs at the Etna Bay prospect area.
Moffett said that the Irja Eastern also identified new deposits at the Wanagon and Wabu gold prospect area which was estimated to have geologic resources of between 20,000 and 40,000 kilograms of gold.
"Again, further drilling will be required to determine the extent and commercial potential of these resources," he said. (fhp)