Newmont Minahasa allocates Rp 46.6 billion for separation pay
Friday, April 6 2001 - 05:00 AM WIB
PT Newmont Minahasa Raya, which plans to close down its gold mine operation in Rotatotok, Mianahasa, North Sulawesi, has allocated about US$5 million or about Rp 46.5 billion for the separation pay of its workers.
The company's president Richard Ness said that the money would be paid to the gold mining operator's own workers and those who are working for the company's contractors.
"The funds have include the cost for scholarships and training activities," he was quoted by the company's spokesman Try Haryono at the sideline of a seminar on the operation of a submarine tailings ground held by the company's sister company PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara in Mataram on Thursday.
Haryono further said that at least 1,500 workers are working at Newmont Minahasa's gold mining. 375 of the workers are working for Newmont while the others are working for the company's contractors.
The United States-based mining company obtained a contract of work to operate the gold mining site in Rotatotok in North Sulawesi in 1996 until 2016. The contract covers 527,448 hectares with gold deposit of about 1.9 million troy ounces (a troy ounce + about 31.01 gram).
Up to now, the company has produced about 1.5 million troy ounces.
"We initially expected that the deposit would be higher than the estimate. In fact, the deposit is depleting and the company no longer needs to wait until 2016 to close the gold mining," he said.
He said that the gold operation would be gradually stopped beginning 2001 to early 2002. "We hope all the activities could be stopped in 2003," he said, adding that that the remaining years of the contract would be used by the company to carry out recovery operations such as reclamation works and reforestation.
As part of the plan to close the mining operations, the company would start to reduce the number of workers beginning this year. "The massive layoff will take place between 2002 and 2003 but workers have nothing to worry because the management has allocated enough funds for the severance payment," Haryono said. (*)