Prabowo reveals BRIN expedition team discovers new gold reserves in Papua
Jakarta (ANTARA) - President Prabowo Subianto has revealed that a cross-institutional expedition team led by the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has discovered gold reserves and several new mineral reserves in the mountainous region of Papua.
The new discovery was reported only hours before the President delivered his speech at the launch of the mandatory B50 programme at the KM 57 Rest Area on the Jakarta-Cikampek Toll Road in Karawang, West Java, on Thursday.
“Our scientific expedition has only just begun — if I am not mistaken, it has been running for just two or three weeks in the mountains of Papua. The team from BRIN, together with several universities and assisted by the TNI, has found gold reserves and very large mineral deposits,” Prabowo said at the B50 launch, addressing a number of state officials and business representatives.
The President therefore invited all parties to share the same sense of optimism about Indonesia’s future.
“Our future is very good, very bright. What remains is for us to keep building, to continue what our predecessors started. To protect our nation, to protect our Republic, to uphold goodness and reduce wrongdoing. We must put an end to corruption, put an end to smuggling, put an end to narcotics, and put an end to online gambling,” the President said.
At the same event, beyond the discovery of new gold and mineral reserves, the President also revealed that Indonesia still holds abundant coal reserves. He also mentioned new natural gas fields in the Andaman Block, off the coast of Aceh, as well as abundant gas reserves in Masela, Southwest Maluku.
“We still have very large gas fields in Masela, Southwest Maluku, in Natuna, and in Kalimantan. We have only just discovered these major fields, and we have only just learned that we have CNG. We still import LPG, but our CNG is plentiful — extremely plentiful,” the President said.
The President went on to say that Central Java has begun using CNG, or compressed natural gas, as an alternative to LPG. He expressed hope that CNG can also be widely used in other regions.
“CNG is available throughout Indonesia, and technology has now also been found to produce gas from deep underground coal seams that have yet to be utilised. My friends, in the midst of a global crisis, it turns out that Indonesia possesses great strength,” Prabowo said.