New shooting at Indonesia's Freeport mine, two hurt
Tue Oct 20, 2009 5:32am EDT
reuters.com
JAKARTA, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Two employees were wounded in a shooting near Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc.'s (FCX.N) Grasberg mine in Indonesia's Papua province, a company spokesman said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks in the area.
Mindo Pangaribuan of PT Freeport Indonesia said the shooting had no impact on production at the mine, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of Freeport's total copper reserves of 93 billion pounds, and boasts the world's largest gold reserves.
"There were shots fired at a security-escorted bus convoy around 0940 a.m local time on Tuesday. Two employees experienced minor injury and are receiving medical treatment," Pangaribuan said, adding the attack happened on a road used to transport logistics for the mine.
Sulistyo Ishak, deputy spokesman for the National Police, told Elshinta radio one employee was shot in his finger and leg, while the other was wounded on the hip.
A series of shootings by unidentified gunmen near the mine in past months, have resulted in some casualties, but so far they have not disrupted production at the mine.
The police and military said they have stepped up security in Papua, the easternmost part of the sprawling Indonesian archipelago. The Grasberg mine is about 3,350 km (2,080 miles) east of Indonesia's capital Jakarta.
Some analysts have tied the recent outbreaks of violence to possible conflicts between the police and military over lucrative security arrangements at the mine and related business ventures, charges authorities have rejected.
Freeport has said it expected its Indonesian unit to sell 1.3 billion pounds of copper this year, up from 1.1 billion pounds of copper in 2008.
It sees gold sales from Grasberg reaching 2.3 million ounces this year, up from 1.2 million ounces in 2008 as it mines higher grade ores.
In the first six months of 2009, Freeport Indonesia produced 807 million recoverable pounds of copper, up from 422 millions pounds in the same period last year, the firm said on its website.
(For a Q+A on the Freeport shootings, click [ID:nJAK204756])
(Reporting by Fitri Wulandari and Retno Palupi; Editing by Ed Davies) |
