Newmont asked to soon replace leaked tailing-pipelines
Wednesday, February 7 2001 - 03:30 AM WIB
PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara, a copper and gold mine operator in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara province, has been required to soon replace the defective section of its tailings pipelines in its mining site in Jereweh subdistrict, Tempo Interaktif reported on Wednesday.
A special team from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said that the gold and copper mine operator should replace at least 10 of the 44-inch pipes, which are used by the company to transmit its tailings or mineral waste from its mining site to an undersea dumping area.
PT NNT general manager Richard Perry acknowledged that the team had formally requested the company to replace the defective steel pipes and that the company had pledged to carry out the replacement works as soon as possible to prevent a further leakage.
Perry noted that the company would halt mining activities for two days to replace the 10 of the 360 steel pipes used by the company to transmit the mineral waste.
The leakage was detected late last month and at least 15,000 liters of tailings are now piled up near the leaked section of the tailings pipelines.
Newmont earlier said that all of the defective sections are in the onshore section of the tailings pipeline and will be replaced by March, when the new pipe sections is delivered by the manufacturer. (*)