Newmont may close mine if no land for expansion

PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara may shut down its copper and gold mine in Sumbawa, West Nusa Tenggara, if its request for additional land for ore stockpiling is turned down by the forestry ministry, a local mining and energy official says as reported by The Jakarta Post.

The head of the West Nusa Tenggara mining and energy office, I Nengah Sumastra, said in Mataram on Saturday that Newmont needed 28-hectares of additional land for stockpiling because the current available land could no longer contain the increasing volume of the company?s unprocessed copper and gold ore.

According to the company?s data, 1,400 hectares had been? cleared to make way for the company?s mining operations.

Sumastra said the company had filed a request for the extra land to the forestry ministry, however the ministry had not responded.

?If the request for land expansion is turned down, then the copper and gold mining company won?t be able to operate or will be closed because there won?t be any available, land to contain the rocks before they undergo processes to become concentrates,? he told Antara.

The company had requested permission to clear part of a protected forest near its mine location for the stock-piling expansion.

According to an existing regulation, all areas of protected forest used for industry must be replanted in an area twice as large as the used area.

Sumastra said that it was difficult to comply with the rule in the Sumbawa regency, because there was not enough land there. (*)