Freeport says it is ready to revise its mining contract

PT Freeport Indonesia, one of the world's major copper and gold mining companies, has said that it would be ready to meet a growing demand from the public to revise its contract of works in order to accommodate the need to promote the local people's participation in the company, Republika reported on Friday.

"We are ready to sit together with the government and to negotiate the possibility of amending and improving the existing contract of works," Armando Mahler, the company's executive vice president and general manager, said during a meeting with the speaker of the House of Representatives Agung Laksono who visited the company's mining site in Timika on Thursday.

Armando acknowledged that the company's management had yet to discuss the possibility of revising the contracts but it would be ready to do so if the government felt the change would be beneficial both for Freeport and the Indonesian people.

"The contract can be revised, and it is the government's rights to do so", he said. He, however, warned that any change in the contract should be carried under the international legal procedure because Freeport as a business entity is protected by law.

Armando said that the change could also be made in the composition of Freeport's shares which are at present 9.36 percent owned by Freeport's subsidiary Indocopper, 81.2 percent by Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc, and 9.36 percent by the Indonesian government.

There is a strong demand from the public to increase the local ownership in Freeport shares such as by distributing a portion of the shares to the local people. (*)