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Freeport gives government four months to negotiate new settlement
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A heavy vehicle passes through an open pit at Freeport's Grasberg mine in Papua. (JP/Nethy Dharma Somba)
R
ichard C. Adkerson, the president and CEO of Freeport-McMoRan, has said his company will give the Indonesian government four months to negotiate a new settlement with the company in relation to a dispute over Freeport’s contract to operate the Grasberg mine in Papua.
If the negotiations fail, the company will go to an international arbitration tribunal to seek a resolution to the dispute, he added.
Adkerson said Freeport had told the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry on Jan. 17 that the government had violated its contract of work (CoW) when it effectively terminated the contract, initially signed in 1991, and demanded that Freeport convert to a special mining license (IUPK).
“There are 120 days for the government and Freeport to resolve these differences and if they cannot be resolved, we will go through an arbitration process,” said Adkerson as reported by tribunnews.com on Monday.
The dispute started when the government issued a regulation stipulating that mining companies that wanted to continue exporting cooper concentrates must alter their agreements from CoWs into IUPKs.
(Read also: Freeport cannot give up rights given in CoW: Adkerson)
Adkerson, however, claims that the 2009 Mineral and Coal Mining Law clearly states that Freeport’s CoW is still valid. As a consequence of this, Adkerson argues that the government does not have the right to demand that Freeport alter its contract.
“We cannot just give up our rights that have been given to us in the CoW,” Adkerson said in a press statement received by The Jakarta Post on Monday. (bbn)
