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Sabotage ruled out in Freeport's pipeline incidents
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A vehicle passes through gold and copper miner PT Freeport Indonesia’s (PTFI) mining area in Grasberg, Mimika, Papua. (JP/Nethy Dharma Somba)
T
he Papua Police said they had ruled out the possibility of an intention to commit sabotage being the motive behind recent cuttings of PT Freeport Indonesia concentrate pipelines at the gold and copper mining giant’s site in Mimika regency.
"So far, we still consider the incidents as purely criminal acts, as we have discovered similar previous cases,” Papua Police chief Insp. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said in Timika, as quoted by Antara on Saturday.
Over the past weeks, a number of concentrate pipes in the facility had been found to have been sawed through by unidentified perpetrators. The most recent occurrence took place on June 25, during the Idul Fitri Islamic holiday.
(Read also: Freeport gets red-carpet treatment, again)
Boy admitted that it was quite difficult to monitor Freeport Indonesia’s concentrate pipelines, which span from Tembagapura district to the Amamapare Port in the Far East Mimika district. Moreover, the pipeline also runs through the wilderness of the Papua forest.
"It will need extra effort to supervise,” he said.
In a recent meeting with Freeport Indonesia management, Boy said that detection equipment, such as CCTV cameras, was needed at every critical point of the concentrate pipeline. (dis/hwa)
