JAKARTA (Reuters) -Freeport Indonesia said on Friday that an investigation into a mud flow that killed workers at its Grasberg copper and gold mine has ended and the company has received improvement recommendations from the government.
Seven workers were killed when around 800,000 metric tons of wet material flooded the Grasberg Block Cave (GBC), one of the mines at the complex, on September 8.
Parent Freeport-McMoRan said in an SEC filing overnight that operations at Big Gossan mine and Deep Mill Level Zone mine at Grasberg have been restarted in late October, as they were unaffected by the mud flow.
It also said it expected a phased restart and ramp-up of Grasberg Block Cave in 2026. The mine represents around 70% of Freeport Indonesia’s previously estimated copper and gold output through 2029.
“PT Freeport Indonesia has received recommendations for improvement from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and is currently following up on all of these recommendations,” spokesperson Katri Krisnati said in a statement, without providing details of the recommendations.
Separately, deputy mining minister Yuliot Tanjung told reporters the ministry was evaluating the incident, to determine the root cause and whether negligence or any regulatory violations were factors in the disaster.
It was not immediately clear whether the ministry’s evaluation was separate from the investigation conducted by Freeport.
(Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe, Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty, John Mair and Tomasz Janowski)
