Owner: Freeport-McMoRan
Type of Mine: Copper, Gold
Location: Papua, Indonesia
Built: 1990
The largest gold mine and third largest copper mine in the world the the Grasberg mine has a turbulent past involving decades of expedition, rebel attacks and a construction cost that went $55 million over budget.
In the ’30s a Dutch expedition set out to scale the highest peaks of the Dutch East Indies. The expedition’s report outlined gold and copper deposits which would become the Ertsberg Mine. Due to the site being a remote mountain face, 4,100 meters above sea level, construction costs were set at $175 million; a 116 km road, an airstrip, power plant and port all needed to be constructed before the Ertsberg Mine would be fully operational. In 1977 a rebel group attacked the mine and used dynamite to sabotage its pipe line.
10 years after the attack, with the mine depleted the, Freeport company explored other deposits in the region hoping that their huge investments could lead to some smaller extraction sites. They hit the jackpot, the Grasberg site, 3 kilometers away from the original Ertsberg peak had reserves of copper exceeding $40 billion dollars. In the aerial shot below you can see the Grasberg site in its current state. While the Ertsberg Mine – the site discovered in the ’30s that started the $175 million investment – is too small to be visible.
Image courtesy of NASA, International Space Station; Grasberg Mine, 1 August 2005
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