The Grasberg mine is the largest gold mine in the world and the third largest copper mine in the world, and is located in the province of Papua in Indonesia. It is owned by the Freeport company based out of the United States. The cost of building a mine on a mountain was 3 billion United States dollars.

Dutch geologist Jean-Jacquez Dozy visited Indonesia in 1936 to scale Jayawijaya Mountain glacier in the Irian Jaya province in western Papua. He made notes of a peculiar black rock with greenish coloring. In 1939, he filed a report about the Ertsberg (Dutch for "ore mountain"). However, the events of World War II caused the report to go unnoticed. Twenty years later in 1960, geologist Forbes Wilson , working for the Freeport mining company, read the report. He had been searching for nickel deposits, but forgot them as soon as he read the report. He quit smoking and exercised to prepare for a trip to explore the Ertsberg. The expedition, led by Forbes Wilson and Del Flint , discovered huge copper deposits at the Ertsberg in 1960.

With permission from the Indonesian government, a Ertsberg mine was built 4,500 meters (14,000 feet) above the sea level. It opened in 1973, and was expanded by Ertsberg East, which opened in 1981. Steep tramways were used to transport equipment and people. Ore is dropped 600 meters (2,000 feet) from the mine, then ground into a powder and mixed with water to form a slurry. The slurry is then pumped through pipes to the mine's port. After smelting, each ton of ore yields 317 kilograms of copper, 30 grams of gold and 30 grams of silver.

By mid-1980s, the mine had been largely depleted. However, the CEO of Freeport did not sell the mine at $75 million, as had been offered. Instead he sent geologists for further search. In 1988, Freeport identified reserves valued at $40 billion at Grasberg, just three kilometers (two miles) from the Ertsberg mine. The winding road to Grasberg was estimated to require $12 million to $15 million to be built. An Indonisian road-builder who contributed to Ertsberg road, took a bulldozer and drove it downhill sketching the path. The road cost just $2 million when completed.

Low copper prices (historically lowest in 2000) have negatively impacted the profitability of the mine.

External links

Mine history: http://www.fcx.com/aboutus/briefhis.htm

Mine diagram: http://www.fcx.com/aboutus/grascomp.htm

Freeport against the natives and the environment: http://www.mpi.org.au/indon/eng_moving_mountains.html

Freeport named one of 10 worst companies of 1996: http://web.archive.org/web/20011026162140/www.geocities.com/RainForest/1387/tenworst.html

Mine's satellite image: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16650