Indonesian New Guinea Adventure Guide - David Pickell Periplus Adventure Guides

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later came to be called—was so exposed because the softer rock surrounding it had been carved away by glaciers. This was the largest above-ground copper deposit in the world.

      The Freeport mines have already provided the world with 3 billion pounds of copper. The Gunung Bijih deposit, which harbored 33 million metric tons of ore, has been exhausted, and all that remains is a pit. But three additional deposits have been discovered just a stone's throw from Gunung Bijih: Gunung Bijih Timur (including two separate deposits), Dom (Dutch for "cathedral," a hill of marble), and the greatest prize of all, Grasberg (Dutch for "grass mountain").

      The 91 kilometer road to Tembagapura was painstakingly cut by flown-in bulldozers.

      And the future is very bright for Freeport. As of 1991, proven reserves at the mine total 447 million metric tons of ore, estimated to yield 14 billion pounds of copper, 19 million ounces of gold, and 35 million ounces of silver. At current rates of extraction, this means an annual revenue of $800 million, more than $1 million per day in profit.

      Mining costs are relatively high at Freeport, now averaging 46¢ per pound of saleable copper, and falling copper prices have at times made the mine temporarily unprofitable. But now that copper stands near $1 per pound, the mine earns Freeport more than $1 million a day.

      'Copper City'

      Mine workers live in Tembagapura—"Copper City"—a company town of 8,700 people nestled in a 1850-meter-high valley near the ore deposits. The setting is stunning, with the western flank of Mount Zaagham providing a spectacular backdrop.

      A melting pot of ethnic groups labors in the mines. A Javanese welds and reshapes the huge steel teeth of a monstrous ore crusher. A Buginese from Sulawesi checks the rollers under a long conveyor belt that brings blasted chunks of ore to the crusher. A highland West Papuan rewires a complicated fuse-box. And a team of two men from Biak efficiently maneuvers a pneumatic drill at the far end of a side tunnel to prepare a section for blasting.

      Freeport employs about 6,900 people, of whom 92 percent are Indonesians. Of these, 13 percent—about 900—are native West Papuans. The company has been criticized for the relatively low number of West Papuans working there, although training programs are beginning to show improved results.

      For the workers, Tembagapura is pleasant, but remote. As an Irish expat said: "All you have to think about is your work—everything else is laid out for you." And very well laid out, with modern homes following the gentle slope of the creek-split valley. After a heavy rain, and 7,600 millimeters fall each year, 50 waterfalls spring from the tropical vegetation or bare rock on the vertical face of Mount Zaagham.

      Facilities at Tembagapura include schools, tennis courts, a soccer field, a complete indoor sports complex, the latest videotapes, a subsidized store, clubs and bars—including the so-called "animal bar," frequented by workers. Hard liquor is taboo, but copious quantities of beer are served.

      Tram cars at the Freeport mine carry 11-17 metric tons of ore at a time along the world's longest single-span tramway to the refining plant below.

      Gunung Bijih, a mountain of nearly pure copper ore, has been exhausted, leaving an open pit. But half a billion tons of ore remain.

      Supplies to Tembagapura must be trucked in over a steep, narrow gravel road from Timika, 75 kilometers away in the lowlands. Just keeping the men fed is a major feat of engineering. For example, Tembagapura requires 110 metric tons of rice a month, 88 metric tons of meat, and 33 metric tons of fish. The men eat a hearty breakfast, and require 91,000 eggs every day. (Freeport's fleet of trucks uses up 200 tires a week.)

      Within the relatively narrow valley, real estate is at a premium. This means that many of the married workers cannot bring their families to Tembagapura, which makes for a lot of lonely men. It was once suggested that some ladies of pleasure be "imported" and periodically checked for disease—a practice in many Indonesian company towns. But the idea was shot down.

      Tembagapura has changed drastically since the early days, when a German visitor exclaimed, "Mein Gott, Stalag 17." But it is still an isolated, tight-knit community. As a Javanese jokingly said, "Irian is the Siberia of Indonesia." He was referring to being so far from home, cut off from familiar surroundings. But in Tembagapura, he could also have been referring to the cold weather. The camps of Siberia never had the creature comforts of this town, however.

      Most of the Indonesians at Tembagapura are content with their lot. They work hard—9 hours a day, 6 days a week—but they get paid quite well, and they get 5 weeks off each year, with the company paying the airfare home.

      Ertsberg rediscovered

      In the early 1950s, Forbes Wilson, chief exploration geologist for Freeport Sulphur of Louisiana, was conducting some library research on possible mining areas. He chanced across a report by Jean Jacques Dozy, published in 1939 by the University of Leiden, but subsequently forgotten in the upheavals of World War II. Although the report stated that it would be hard to imagine a more difficult place to find an ore deposit, Wilson was thrilled.

      "My reaction was immediate," Wilson said. "I was so excited I could feel the hairs rising on the back of my neck."

      Wilson was determined to view the marvel himself and to take enough samples to determine if mining operations would be justified. In 1936 it had taken Dozy 57 days to reach Ertsberg after a parachute drop.

      Taking advantage of post-World War II U.S. military organization and financing from Freeport, Wilson sent in an advance party and hopped on a chartered plane from Biak. He landed on the south coast of what was then Dutch New Guinea. The landing strip was a former Japanese airfield used for bombing raids on Darwin, Australia.

      Wilson's party canoed as far upstream as possible, then hiked in with mountain West Papuans who, paid in axes and machetes, served as porters. The porters, the mining engineer writes, ate "anything that walks, creeps or crawls," including humans, which they called "long pigs" and found much juicier than pork.

      A skilled West Papuan miner wields a jackhammer.

      It took Wilson 17 days to reach Ertsberg, scaling a sheer cliff face 600 meters high where the tramway now smoothly ferries passengers and ore. The trek was worth it—as he chipped through the stone's oxidized layer he saw the gleaming golden color of chal-copyrite, a sulfide of iron and copper. Spending several days at the Ertsberg collecting samples, Wilson also saw malachite stains on a distant cliff, part of what is now called Gunung Bijih Timur ("Ore Mountain East").

      Wilson's initial estimates, relayed excitedly by radio, proved quite accurate: 13 million tons of high grade ore lay above ground and 14 million tons more below. But, as he describes, this was "perhaps the most remote, primitive and inhospitable area in the world." The copper was there all right; the problem was getting it out.

      Wilson even had problems getting out himself. Not only was he apprehensive of his cannibal porters, but he wore out his seventh and last pair of boots before reaching the canoes. But he made it, bringing back several hundred pounds of samples, which confirmed his opinion of their high copper content.

      Freeport needed more samples before investing the millions of dollars required to build the mine, however. One problem—insurmountable at the time—was transporting the huge diamond drills needed to take deep samples. Even disassembled, the parts were too heavy for choppers in the early 1960s, which could then lift only one passenger and 113 kilos to a height of no more than 3,600 meters.

      Technology and politics

      Clouds of political instability combined with technical problems to block the project, as President Sukarno began a military campaign to wrest West Papua from the Dutch. The project was put on the back burner in the hopes that eventually the situation

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