Wednesday, June 19, 2002 05:17:42 AM

Freeport Indonesia Urged to Conduct Tailing Cost-Benefit Study

JAKARTA, June 14 Asia Pulse/Antara - Private gold and copper company PT Freeport Indonesia has been asked by the Indonesian Environment Ministry to conduct a cost-benefit analysis on its own tailings, State Minister of Enviroment Nabiel Makarim said here Thursday.

The analysis could also be used as a parameter to find out the advantages and disadvantages to PT Freeport's environment of the use of nearby river as a tailings dumpsite, Makarim said in a hearing with the House of Representatives' commission on mining and energy matters.

The minister said PT Freeport Indonesia was committed to carry out the ecological risk assessment (ERA) study next October.

The company, he said, would make recommendations from its ERA study and use the recommendations to draw up a new environmental management and monitoring plan.

PT Freeport Indonesia is a subsidiary of United States-based MacMoran Freeport company.

Speaking on illegal logging, the minister said his office had banned log exports and brought the culprits to court.

To reduce the illegal logging, he said, the country had also conducted lobbies and forged multilateral cooperation with Forest Law Enforcement and Governance East Asia Ministerial Conference which was held in Bali last September and a preparatory meeting to Johannesburg Summit which was held in the well-known island resort as well last week.

The Indonesian government has conducted lobbies with the British and the Malaysian governments, he added.

The minister expressed hope that the lobbies would prevent log importers from buying timber not covered by the required documents, he said.