U.S. Freeport stops mining in Indonesia due to sabotage

A senior official at Freeport McMoran, a U.S. gold and copper mining firm operating in Papua, said here on Monday that the firm had to stop its production following sabotage acts that led to closure of access to its open- pit mining site Grassberg and underground Deep Ore Zone site. "As of today we had to stop all production process," Freeport Vice President Nurhadi Sabirin said in a teleconference with the media held here. He said that the pipeline transferring gold and copper ores from its mill to the seaport cannot operate properly following a shooting and sabotage act. The huge pipeline rattles 114 km from Freeport's mill center in Grassberg hill in Tembagapura, Papua to the seaport. Freeport operates 220 230 thousand tons of ores per day in Grassberg and Deep Ore Zone mining sites. According to the data released by Freeport last year, each ton of ore contains eight kilograms of copper and 0.91 gram of gold. As of Oct. 15, Freeport has shipped 103,189 tons of gold and copper concentrate out from its seaport in Papua. Freeport workers launched mass strike since last month in a bid to demand higher wages. The strike was marred with violence in which a worker was reportedly shot by the apparatus. A firearm shooting incident took place in the firm's pathway to its mining site recently.