South Africa police standoff with illegal gold miners escalates
The police sealed off access to the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein several weeks ago to deny the miners access to food and other essentials.
According to reports more than 7,000 workers from Freeport McMoRan’s massive gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s western Papua region started a week-long strike on Monday to demand better wages.
The Grasberg mine is the richest gold and third largest copper mine in the world and and the US company’s local subsidiary is the largest single taxpayer to the Indonesian government.
Papua, a resource-rich region on the western end of New Guinea island, has been the site of a low-level separatist insurgency since its incorporation into Indonesia in the 1960s.
During the first quarter of 2011 the company reported copper and gold sales from Grasberg that were significantly above the January 2011 estimates because of improved pit slope conditions, which enabled access to ore previously expected to be mined in future periods.
Because of recent revisions to its Grasberg mine plans, Freeport expects 2011 sales to approximate 1.1 billion pounds of copper and 1.5 million ounces of gold, which reflect increases of approximately 40 million pounds and approximately 130 thousand ounces.
Apart from the Grasberg mining complex Freeport holds significant mining operations in the Americas, including the large scale Morenci and Safford minerals districts in North America and the Cerro Verde and El Abra operations in South America, and the Tenke Fungurume minerals district in the DRC.
Image from Google Earth
