Indonesian New Guinea Adventure Guide - David Pickell Periplus Adventure Guides

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      After Suharto took over the reins of government, a 1967 Foreign Investment Law once again encouraged investment in Indonesia. Freeport hired Ali Budiarjo as a consultant and things began to look up. Budiaijo was a Dutch-educated Indonesian, a patriot who opposed colonialism, but most importantly, a Javanese well-connected to the Jakarta scene.

      Wilson and a legal advisor were among the first foreign businessmen to be welcomed back to the country. When they arrived at the Hotel Indonesia, there were only 15 guests attended by 1,800 employees. Freeport's contract with the government was the first to be signed under the new investment law.

      In 1967, the last phase of testing was carried out. Helicopter technology had by then advanced such that there were craft available that could lift half a ton to the required altitude—enough to ferry in the diamond drills needed for core samples. The deep cores confirmed Wilson's estimates.

      Tembagapura, or "Copper City," nestles in a 1,850-meter-high valley.

      Financing was the next problem. Wilson had to convince Freeport's board of directors, understandably nervous after Fidel Castro's nationalization of their operation in Cuba, that Indonesia was a safe place to invest. A consortium of Japanese and German lenders finally backed Freeport and the project began.

      Bechtel was chosen as the prime contractor, but even these famous can-do engineers were nearly overwhelmed by technical problems at Tembagapura. Bechtel stated categorically that the mine was the most formidable construction feat they had ever undertaken.

      Building the mine

      Men and supplies were ferried in from Australia in a PBY seaplane (Howard Hughes had earlier converted it to fish salmon in Alaska but later lost interest) and a seaport was hacked out of the mangrove swamps with chainsaws at Amamapare, at the mouth of the Timika River. Men sank up to their waists in mud sawing through a 15-acre morass of mangrove roots, praying all the time that the racket would keep the crocodiles at bay.

      Temporary landing pads for the helicopters were carved out by lowering chain-saw-wielding men on lines from the hovering craft. The men, dangling in the air, cut the tops off the trees to get through the thick canopy and, once on the ground, chopped up enough trunks to make a landing platform. Helicopters ferried men and supplies everywhere. Six choppers were on the job by August 1971, shifting 1,604 tons of supplies inland in that month alone.

      The 92-kilometer road from the Tipuka River to the mill site was the toughest challenge. Eighty kilometers from the port, the least abrupt incline rose at a 70 degree angle. The mountain was not only steep, but razorbacked—a two-foot wide ridge, with sheer drops on either side. At first, tiny D4 bulldozers, slightly bigger than a lawn-mower, were flown in to carefully shave off the top of the ridge and make room for the slightly larger D6s, which in turn cleared space for the D7s, followed by the D8s. By the time the monstrous, 25-ton D12s were done, 12 million tons of earth had been moved, altering the angle of the slope from 70 to 27 degrees—the maximum that could be negotiated by fully-loaded trucks. Not even the steepest streets of San Francisco have such a grade.

      Separated from loved ones in isolated Tembagapura, mine workers entertain themselves with spirited soccer games.

      A hundred Korean coal miners were flown in to dig a 1,105 meter tunnel through Mt. Hannekam for the first section of the road, at 2,600 meters. From there, the road dropped to 1,850 meters at the site of Tembagapura, then shot up through another tunnel to the future mill site, located at 2,900 meters, 10 kilometers from Copper City.

      To move ore from the mine to the mill, an 800-meter tramway was constructed through the rain and fast-moving clouds of the highlands (there are now two). Each of the cars, humming along on dual cables, carries 11-17 tons of partially crushed mineral to the bottom, dumps its load, and then returns to the top in a never-ending procession.

      Construction of the unsupported, single-span tramway began when a helicopter towed a 3,000-meter-long nylon rope from the valley to the mine site. Once this was strung, it was used to pull up progressively stronger rope and finally, the heavy cables. But once in place, heavy oscillation derailed the ore cars, flipping them against the rock wall and down into the valley.

      An expert mathematician was brought in from Switzerland to solve the problem. He calculated the resonances of all the parts, and made some small but crucial adjustments to the system. "A tramway is like a violin," the mathematician said. "It has to be tuned."

      Pipeline to the sea

      At the mill, the ore is crushed to a fine powder, and the valuable mineral is separated from the base rock. A concentrated slurry is produced, then pumped into 112-kilometer pipelines that follow the contours of the land to the port of Amamapare on the coast There the slurry is dried, and loaded on ore ships.

      The pipeline gave engineers headaches at first. It repeatedly ruptured until a pump speed of just over 3 miles per hour, with a fairly wet slurry (64 to 67 percent water), was settled on as ideal.

      There are no roads out of Amamapare. All travel is by boat, across the ocean or up the river. Some 18 kilometers upriver, the road begins, and here barges unload their cargo. Timika, where a modern airport receives Garuda jets, is 22 kilometers from where the barges unload. The road then runs flat and straight for 40 kilometers to the base of the mountains, past the ricefields of Javanese transmigrants. From the base of the mountain to the 2,600 meter ridge is a quick, switch-back climb. Once at the top, the road follows the ridge before heading through a tunnel to Tembagapura—92 kilometers of incredible engineering.

      On Christmas Day 1971, the first convoy of trucks arrived at Tembagapura. A year later, the first shipment of copper concentrate was already on its way to Japan. In the meantime, about $200 million had been spent.

      In March 1973, President Suharto gave Tembagapura its name and officially opened the operation. At the same time he ordained that the name of the province would henceforth be Irian Jaya ("Victorious Irian") instead of Irian Barat ("West Irian"), a decision which obliged the Freeport officials to send the dedication plaque back to the United States for re-engraving.

      Although the initial investment in building the mine was recovered in just three years, low world copper prices kept profits to a minimum until 1979. From the start of operations in 1973 until the end of 1980, some 521,000 tons of copper concentrate were shipped out, containing 6 million ounces of silver and 463,000 ounces of gold, and resulting in $772 million in gross sales.

      Community relations problems

      The West Papuans living near the mine site were at first simply astonished by all the activity, then began to resent the huge disparity of wealth that existed between themselves and the Freeport workers. At times, groups have claimed ownership of the mine, saying that their land and minerals have been unfairly expropriated.

      At one time, the West Papuans—who considered the mountain sacred—put up saleps, hex sticks in the shape of crude half-meter-high wooden crosses, all around Copper Mountain. Resentment still surfaces today.

      In the first years of the mine's operation, a cargo cult grew up in the area. One man proclaimed that he would be able to open the warehouse inside the mountain where the whites and western Indonesians obtain their wonderful possessions, with only a special rodent's tooth. The tooth didn't work, but this longing for material goods continued to brew.

      Separatist rebels—members of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, or OPM, which had been fighting against Indonesian rule since the 1960s—recruited some West Papuans near Tembagapura, including a few of the company workers. The conflict came to a head in the summer of 1977, and the slurry pipeline was cut in several places, power lines were ruptured, an explosives magazine was burned and several trucks returned with arrows in their radiators.

      Most of the problems the company faces today have to do with displacement, and a growing dependency on the mine. In its setting, the wealth of the Freeport operations is incredible, and even the garbage produced by Tembagapura is very attractive

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