Freeport starts Deep Ore Zone underground mining
Monday, November 27 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
The giant gold mining company PT Freeport Indonesia in West Papua province is ready to start its Deep Ore Zone underground mining in the East Estberg area, company vice president for communications Yuli Ismartono said in a press statement.
Yuli said that the operation of the Deep Ore Zone underground mining was crucial because the operation of the Intermediate Ore Zone underground mining would end in 2003.
She said that the initial production capacity of the Deep Ore Zone this month would be 1,000 tons per day, to be increased to 2,500 tons per day next month, and to between 8,000-13,000 tons per day in 2001 and 25,000 tons per day in 2003.
She said that the increase in the production capacity would also boost the number of workers from 296 currently to 464 people in 2001.
Yuli said that all of the 131 million tons of ore reserves in the Deep Ore Zone area could be exploited through 2014. (R. Amoros)