Strong Earthquake Strikes Eastern Indonesia
6/26/2011
Thousands of workers kicked off a weeklong strike at Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia, one of the world's largest gold and copper mines, demanding higher wages and protesting the dismissal of their union…
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Earthquake Hits Indonesia's Papua Province
6/26/2011
Some 13,000 Freeport Indonesia workers went on strike on Monday at its mine in Papua, while a group representing native Papuan workers urged its members to go back to their jobs. According to workers taking part in the strike, people left…
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Indonesia may ban workers to Saudi Arabia
6/22/2011
Some 13,000 Freeport Indonesia workers went on strike on Monday at its mine in Papua, while a group representing native Papuan workers urged its members to go back to their jobs. According to workers taking part in the strike, people left…
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Indonesia earthquake 6.4 magnitude rocks Papua province
6/26/2011
TIMIKA, Indonesia - Thousands of workers have started a weeklong strike at Freeport-McMoRan's gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia, demanding higher wages and protesting the dismissal of their union leaders.Union official Juli…
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Indonesia to find new trading partners for beef
6/12/2011
About 8,000 workers at the huge Freeport-McMoran copper and gold mine in the Indonesia province of Papua began a seven day strike yesterday.The Reuters news agency reports Freeport saying it’s not anticipating any impact on production at…
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Cost of living more important than animal welfare in Indonesia
6/5/2011
Thousands of workers kicked off a weeklong strike at Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg gold and copper mine in eastern Indonesia, one of the world's largest gold and copper mines, demanding higher wages and protesting the dismissal of their union…
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Freeport Workers In Papua Begin 7-Day Strike
Byworkingindonesia·14 hours ago
From Reuters: About 8,000 workers at Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc’s Indonesian unit kicked off a seven-day strike on Monday, a union head said, in a move that could potentially disrupt operations. Freeport said it was not anticipating…
Working Indonesia - http://workingindonesia.wordpress.com/?pushpress=hub
Swedish envoy offers Papua economic, environmental cooperation
ByWPNN·6/18/2011
Visiting Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Ewa Polano at a meeting with Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu here on Thursday (16/6 ... Papua, Govt Eye Stakes in Freeport OPM Shoots Policeman in Puncak Jaya Trans Papua roads scheduled for completion…
technology « WordPress.com Tag Feed - http://en.wordpress.com/tag/technology/
Simply Divine Brownies
ByTina·7/1/2011
Simply Divine Brownies 7 Mill Street,Floor 2 Freeport,Maine 04032 Phone:207-865-3961 Website: http://www.simplydivinebrownies.com ... עברית हिन्दी magyar bahasa Indonesia íslenska italiano 日本語 한국어 bahasa Melayu Malti Nederlands norsk polski…
The Wandering Eater - http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/
Market Gets Bored of Hearing about Greece
ByTraderMark·6/21/2011
Hearing some interesting comments on the boob tube the past 2 days... along the lines of "bad news fatigue". I suppose once bad news becomes tiring you can sort of forget it exists in markets. But more likely it is clear that the global…
Fund My Mutual Fund - http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Freeport Grasberg Strike Enters Second Day, Disrupts Output
Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX) said production from its Grasberg mine in Indonesia’s Papua province was disrupted after workers started a seven-day strike yesterday, demanding wage increases.
The mine is operating at a “smaller scale,” although concentrate shipments are unaffected by the stoppage, Ramdani Sirait, a Jakarta-based spokesman at unit PT Freeport Indonesia, said today in a mobile-phone text message. The company will use its stockpiles to meet contractual sales, he said yesterday.
“Worker representatives and Freeport officials met this morning to discuss the contracts for 2011 to 2013,” Virgo Solossa, head of organizational affairs at Freeport Indonesia’s labor union, said by telephone from Timika, Papua. “We want Freeport as a world-class mining company to give us better conditions.”
Almost all of the 8,000 non-staff workers have gathered at the town about 46 miles (74 kilometers) from the mine site since 3 a.m. local time, Solossa said. The workers are paid $1.5 to $3.5 an hour or about 3 million rupiah ($351) to 5.5 million rupiah a month, he said.
Grasberg, where operations started in 1990, contains the world’s largest recoverable reserves of copper and the biggest single gold reserve, according to Freeport’s website.
Copper production at the Grasberg mine fell to 1.22 billion pounds (553.4 million kilograms) last year from 1.41 billion pounds a year earlier, according to the website. Gold output declined to 1.79 million ounces (50,745 kilograms) from 2.57 million ounces.
Copper for three month delivery slipped 0.3 percent to $9,430 a ton on the London Metal Exchange at 11:53 a.m. Jakarta time. The contract has dropped 2.6 percent this year.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bambang Djanuarto in Jakarta at bdjanuarto@bloomberg.net; Yoga Rusmana in Jakarta at yrusmana@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
The mine is operating at a “smaller scale,” although concentrate shipments are unaffected by the stoppage, Ramdani Sirait, a Jakarta-based spokesman at unit PT Freeport Indonesia, said today in a mobile-phone text message. The company will use its stockpiles to meet contractual sales, he said yesterday.
“Worker representatives and Freeport officials met this morning to discuss the contracts for 2011 to 2013,” Virgo Solossa, head of organizational affairs at Freeport Indonesia’s labor union, said by telephone from Timika, Papua. “We want Freeport as a world-class mining company to give us better conditions.”
Almost all of the 8,000 non-staff workers have gathered at the town about 46 miles (74 kilometers) from the mine site since 3 a.m. local time, Solossa said. The workers are paid $1.5 to $3.5 an hour or about 3 million rupiah ($351) to 5.5 million rupiah a month, he said.
Grasberg, where operations started in 1990, contains the world’s largest recoverable reserves of copper and the biggest single gold reserve, according to Freeport’s website.
Copper production at the Grasberg mine fell to 1.22 billion pounds (553.4 million kilograms) last year from 1.41 billion pounds a year earlier, according to the website. Gold output declined to 1.79 million ounces (50,745 kilograms) from 2.57 million ounces.
Copper for three month delivery slipped 0.3 percent to $9,430 a ton on the London Metal Exchange at 11:53 a.m. Jakarta time. The contract has dropped 2.6 percent this year.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bambang Djanuarto in Jakarta at bdjanuarto@bloomberg.net; Yoga Rusmana in Jakarta at yrusmana@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net
UPDATE 1-Workers say strike hits output at Freeport Indonesia mine
Tue Jul 5, 2011 9:15am EDT
By Olivia Rondonuwu
JAKARTA, July 5 (Reuters) - Mining operations and production at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold's mine in Indonesia have been significantly curtailed by the second day of a seven-day strike by about 8,000 workers, union workers said on Tuesday.
Freeport Indonesia said on Tuesday that concentrate shipments have not been disrupted but has declined to comment on whether operations have been affected at the remote mountain mine, which has the world's largest reserve of gold .
"This is a rough estimate but I think from full operation of 100 percent, the mining operation has now dropped to below 10 percent, which is equal to almost no operation," Virgo Solossa, one of the union heads at the mine, told Reuters by telephone.
He said the use of five shovels at the Grasberg mine had dropped to two, while trucks that normally ferry ore from the mine 80-200 times a day were now only making the trip 20 times at the most.
Solossa is one of the union leaders who has received a warning from Freeport, which has said the strike over pay is illegal.
Another worker, who declined to be identified for fear of a backlash, told Reuters that engines at the mine, including shovels, trucks and mills, have all been shut down.
"When I left the situation was like an abandoned war zone," said the mechanic, who said he was in the last batch of about 2,000 workers to leave the open pit mine.
"It was dead quiet, no operations, no cars, were moving... All engines were shut down, operation tools and the power have all been turned off," he said.
The Grasberg mine normally operates 24 hours a day. Freeport-McMoran's Indonesia unit said in March it expected copper output to fall 17 percent this year to about 1 billion lbs.
Freeport's Jakarta-based spokesman Ramdani Sirait declined to comment further on production or operations.
A third worker who does quality control at one of the concentrate plants said in the two days leading up to the strike, processing had slowed down and dropped 70 percent because the amount of ore arriving had been reduced.
The union said it staged the strike to demand a pay rise for workers getting $1.5 per hour, when it said other Freeport workers around the world were paid at least $15-30 per hour, as well as for the reinstatement of its leaders who were expecting to get sacked.
Both sides have called for negotiations but there was no sign of any talks starting yet.
"A prolonged bit of industrial action is likely to affect production undoubtedly. Force majeure for strike action is tricky legally, because it's not an act of God," said Colin Hamilton, a senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in London.
"If they started really missing contract shipments and rather than delay they had to cancel them, then they would probably have to start thinking about declaring a force majeure."
He said it was too early to tell if the strike would affect the gold or copper markets.
"At the moment, it's just started and these things can often go away quite quickly. Essentially, it's really too early to tell the overall impact."
Gold prices were up 0.5 percent on Tuesday, while copper prices were steady on the day.
Freeport's Indonesia mine is located in the remote Papua province, where a separatist insurgency and struggle over resources has lingered for decades. It is a major contributor to central government revenues. (Additional reporting Samuel Wanda in Timika and Michael Taylor in Jakarta; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Anthony Barker)
By Olivia Rondonuwu
JAKARTA, July 5 (Reuters) - Mining operations and production at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold's mine in Indonesia have been significantly curtailed by the second day of a seven-day strike by about 8,000 workers, union workers said on Tuesday.
Freeport Indonesia said on Tuesday that concentrate shipments have not been disrupted but has declined to comment on whether operations have been affected at the remote mountain mine, which has the world's largest reserve of gold .
"This is a rough estimate but I think from full operation of 100 percent, the mining operation has now dropped to below 10 percent, which is equal to almost no operation," Virgo Solossa, one of the union heads at the mine, told Reuters by telephone.
He said the use of five shovels at the Grasberg mine had dropped to two, while trucks that normally ferry ore from the mine 80-200 times a day were now only making the trip 20 times at the most.
Solossa is one of the union leaders who has received a warning from Freeport, which has said the strike over pay is illegal.
Another worker, who declined to be identified for fear of a backlash, told Reuters that engines at the mine, including shovels, trucks and mills, have all been shut down.
"When I left the situation was like an abandoned war zone," said the mechanic, who said he was in the last batch of about 2,000 workers to leave the open pit mine.
"It was dead quiet, no operations, no cars, were moving... All engines were shut down, operation tools and the power have all been turned off," he said.
The Grasberg mine normally operates 24 hours a day. Freeport-McMoran's Indonesia unit said in March it expected copper output to fall 17 percent this year to about 1 billion lbs.
Freeport's Jakarta-based spokesman Ramdani Sirait declined to comment further on production or operations.
A third worker who does quality control at one of the concentrate plants said in the two days leading up to the strike, processing had slowed down and dropped 70 percent because the amount of ore arriving had been reduced.
The union said it staged the strike to demand a pay rise for workers getting $1.5 per hour, when it said other Freeport workers around the world were paid at least $15-30 per hour, as well as for the reinstatement of its leaders who were expecting to get sacked.
Both sides have called for negotiations but there was no sign of any talks starting yet.
"A prolonged bit of industrial action is likely to affect production undoubtedly. Force majeure for strike action is tricky legally, because it's not an act of God," said Colin Hamilton, a senior analyst at Macquarie Securities in London.
"If they started really missing contract shipments and rather than delay they had to cancel them, then they would probably have to start thinking about declaring a force majeure."
He said it was too early to tell if the strike would affect the gold or copper markets.
"At the moment, it's just started and these things can often go away quite quickly. Essentially, it's really too early to tell the overall impact."
Gold prices were up 0.5 percent on Tuesday, while copper prices were steady on the day.
Freeport's Indonesia mine is located in the remote Papua province, where a separatist insurgency and struggle over resources has lingered for decades. It is a major contributor to central government revenues. (Additional reporting Samuel Wanda in Timika and Michael Taylor in Jakarta; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Anthony Barker)
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