Mountains Stone Copper and Gold Mine Freeport

Many people think in mine PT Freeport Indonesia, which are located in Papua there is gold bullion. Make no mistake, this mining process mineral rock (ore / ore) containing copper, gold, and silver up to 95%. The end result concentrate or mineral sands.

When we are opportunity to visit the Freeport mine in Papua, Sunday (16/08/2015), Freeport describes the processing of rocks into a concentrate or the mineral sands.

So, the stones taken from the Grasberg mine in the mountains and some of the underground mines, destroyed and sent automatically by conveyor, or rubber running.

Every day, Freeport process approximately 220000-240000 tons of ore or ore (rock minerals). These stones are sent to the processing of concentrates.

Mountains Stone Copper and Gold Mine Freeport

Through this automated process, these stones were sent to a large machine whose job grind rocks to be a mineral sands containing copper, gold, and silver.

The grinding machine is working 24 hours and is operated automatically by the computer system. This milling process using physical processes.

Then there is the process of creating valuable minerals or concentrates float, by adding chemicals to separate the valuable mineral sands and mineral sands worthless.

Sand containing no mineral is called waste products or tailings, or sand tailings. While the sands that contain this mineral will be sent to the harbor, located about 115 km from the mine, then sent to the buyer.

If you want to 100% is processed into finished goods, such as gold bullion, then concentrate it must be processed using the smelter (purification plant). Freeport currently has a smelter in Gresik, East Java in cooperation with Mitsubishi Corporation Unimetal, nippin Mining and Metals, and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation. The capacity is 1 million tons / year, and will be increased to 3 million tons / year with an investment of US $ 2.3 billion.

Through which the process of ore into a concentrate in the Freeport mine already includes 95% value added. While processing in smelters only add 5%, such as to be a piece of copper or gold bullion.

As is known, every 1 ton of ore (ore) produced from the Freeport mine in Papua, it only contains 7.9 kg of copper and 0.99 grams of gold. So the dosage is quite small.


Freeport is preparing an underground gold mine in the world. Grasberg location below . The underground mine will be the future of Freeport . During this time , the company had spent about US $ 4 billion for underground mines , of the total planned US $ 15 billion .

Berinduk mining companies in the United States ( US) contract will expire in 2021. And the government was waiting for certainty , for a contract to be extended until 2041. Because it will issue a big investment for underground mines and smelters