Dairi mine

Last updated
Dairi mine
Location
Indonesia Sumatra location map.svg
Schlaegel und Eisen nach DIN 21800.svg
Dairi mine
Location in Sumatra
LocationNear the Sopokomil hamlet of Longkotan village, Silima Pungga-Pungga subdivision, Dairi Regency
Province North Sumatra
Country Indonesia
Coordinates 2°49′N98°07′E / 2.82°N 98.11°E / 2.82; 98.11
Production
Products Lead, Zinc
History
Discovered1997
Owner
Company Dairi Prima Mineral
Website www.ptdpm.co.id

The Dairi mine is a zinc and lead mine in the Dairi Regency of the North Sumatra province of Indonesia.

Contents

It is owned by Dairi Prima Mineral, which obtained a permit to explore the area in 1988 and started drilling in 1997. The largest of the ore bodies is 26.7 million tons, reportedly estimated by the mining company as comprising 7% lead and 12% zinc.

Location and description

The underground mine is located near the Sopokomil hamlet of Longkotan [id] village [1] in the Silima Pungga-Pungga [id] subdistrict of Dairi Regency, in the North Sumatra province on the island of Sumatra, in Western Indonesia. [2] [3] The location is 25 kilometres west-northwest of Sidikalang, the capital town of Dairi Regency. [4]

The mine sits on the Great Sumatran fault line. [3] The earthquake-prone land around the mine is unstable because it is composed of ash from the local volcanoes. [1] Stanford University civil engineer Richard Meehan said that the mine's design is "almost certain" to result in a disaster due to the instability of the tailings dam. The owners of the mine partly rejected Meehan's assertions. [1]

Ownership

The mine is owned by Dairi Prima Mineral, [3] officially known as PT Dairi Prima Minera). [5] Key staff include technical director Ryno Chandra Mulya. [1]

It was previously owned by West Perth company Herald Resources Inc. [6]

History

In 1998, Dairi Prima Mineral was given a mining permit covering 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres). [3] Drilling began in 1997, during which an ore body with high concentrations of Zinc. The ore body was named Anjing Hitam (English: Black dog) after Blacky the drilling team's pet dog. Exploration of the site continued for six years. A 2002 and 2004 studies estimated the ore body to be 7.7 million tonnes in weight, containing 16% zinc sulfide and 9.8% galena, the naturally-occurring form of lead sulfide. [4] 2012 updated from the owners indicate reserves of 26.6 million tonnes of ore graded at 7% lead and 12% zinc. [2]

Since then, local villagers have raised concerns about the storage of explosives, the location of a tailings dam, the killing of fish and flash flooding, that occurred in 2018 allegedly as a result of mining activity. The company blamed the flooding on illegal forestry in the region. In 2019, the local community officially registered their complaint with the Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman of the International Finance Corporation, a division of the World Bank, who partly financed the mine. [3] The 2022 report of the ombudsman “suggests shortcomings in the design of DPM’s tailings dam and assessment of associated risks compared with good international industry practice for the construction of such facilities, particularly considering the topographical, geological, seismic and climatological characteristics of the site.” [3] [7]

Advocacy group Bakumsu stated that it “is clear they [the government] are willing to sacrifice these communities’ safety to big business.” [3]

After a series of Addenda to their Environmental Impact Assessment, in 2022, DPM were provided Environmental Approval for changes to their mine by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry. This decision was challenged by legal groups acting for concerned citizens from around the proposed mine. In July 2023, the Jakarta Administrative Court released a verdict upholding the community complaint in its entirety, obliging the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to revoke DPM's Environmental Approval [8] . (https://sipp.ptun-jakarta.go.id/index.php/detil_perkara. Enter the case number 59/G/LH/2023/PTUN.JKT.)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ore</span> Rock with valuable metals, minerals and elements

Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals concentrated above background levels, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit. The grade of ore refers to the concentration of the desired material it contains. The value of the metals or minerals a rock contains must be weighed against the cost of extraction to determine whether it is of sufficiently high grade to be worth mining, and is therefore considered an ore. A complex ore is one containing more than one valuable mineral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Underground hard-rock mining</span> Mining techniques used to excavate hard minerals and gems

Underground hard-rock mining refers to various underground mining techniques used to excavate "hard" minerals, usually those containing metals, such as ore containing gold, silver, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, tin, and lead. It also involves the same techniques used to excavate ores of gems, such as diamonds and rubies. Soft-rock mining refers to the excavation of softer minerals, such as salt, coal, and oil sands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-pit mining</span> Surface mining technique

Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tailings</span> Materials left over from the separation of valuable minerals from ore

In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlies an ore or mineral body and is displaced during mining without being processed.

The Pine Point Mine is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake between Hay River to the west and Fort Resolution to the east, in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It produced lead and zinc ores from a Mississippi Valley Type deposit between 1964 and 1988. Most of the mining was done by open-pit methods. The town of Pine Point was built by the mining company, Cominco, and when the mine closed the town was abandoned and demolished.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sullivan Mine</span>

The Sullivan Mine is a now-closed conventional–mechanized underground mine located in Kimberley, British Columbia, Canada. The ore body is a complex, sediment-hosted, sedimentary exhalative deposit consisting primarily of zinc, lead, and iron sulphides. Lead, zinc, silver and tin were the economic metals produced. The deposit lies within the lower part of the Purcell Supergroup and mineralization occurred about 1470 million years ago during the late Precambrian (Mesoproterozoic).

Crandon mine was a mine proposed for northeastern Wisconsin, USA. It was to be situated near the town of Crandon and the Mole Lake Ojibwe Reservation in Forest County. The mine was the center of a multi-decade political and regulatory battle between environmentalists, American Indian tribes, sportfishing groups, and the State of Wisconsin and several large mining corporations. The purchase of the mine site in 2003 by the Sokaogon Ojibwe and Forest County Potawatomi marked a major victory for the tribes and environmental activists, and raised questions about the future of mining, economics, and tribal power in Wisconsin.

The Admiralty mining district is a mining area in the U.S. state of Alaska which consists of Admiralty Island. Silver and base metals are mined, with gold recovered as a by-product.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Kutai Regency</span> Regency in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

East Kutai Regency is a regency of East Kalimantan province, Indonesia. It has an area of 35,747.50 km2 and had a population of 253,904 at the 2010 census and 434,459 at the 2020 census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 425,613. The town of Sangatta is the capital of the regency.

The Whim Creek Copper Mine is a copper oxide mine, located in the City of Karratha in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

PT United Tractors Tbk is a subsidiary of PT Astra International Tbk ("Astra") that operates in six business lines, namely Construction Machinery, Mining Contractor, Coal Mining, Gold Mining, Construction Industry, and Energy. United Tractors has 20 branch offices, 32 site supports, 6 representative offices, and 54 support points as well as other service installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dairi Regency</span> Regency in North Sumatra, Indonesia

Dairi Regency is an inland regency on the west shore of Lake Toba in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The regency covers an area of 1,927.77 square kilometres (744.32 sq mi) and it had a population of 269,848 people at the 2010 Census and 308,764 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 315,460. Its seat is at the town of Sidikalang.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Batu Hijau mine</span>

The Batu Hijau mine is an open pit copper-gold mine operated by PT. Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara. The mine is the second largest copper-gold mine in Indonesia behind the Grasberg mine of PT. Freeport Indonesia. The mine is located 1,530 kilometres (950 mi) east of the Indonesian capital Jakarta on Sumbawa, an island in West Nusa Tenggara Province, more precisely in the southern part of West Sumbawa Regency. The mine is the result of a ten-year exploration and construction program based on a 1999 discovery of the porphyry copper deposit. Production began in 2000.

The Bathurst Mining Camp is a mining district in northeast New Brunswick, Canada, centred in the Nepisiguit River valley, and near to Bathurst. The camp hosts 45 known volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits typical of the Appalachian Mountains. Some of the ore is smelted at the Belledune facility of Xstrata. Although the primary commodity is zinc, the massive-sulphide ore body produces lead, zinc, copper, silver, gold, bismuth, antimony and cadmium.

The Canatuan mine was a gold/silver, copper/zinc open-pit mine located in the province of Zamboanga del Norte on the southern island of Mindanao, Philippines. The mine was operated from 2004 to January 2014 by TVI Resource Development (Phils) Inc., a former subsidiary of Canadian-based TVI Pacific Inc. The mine was operated within Mount Canatuan, a sacred mountain of the Subanen people, who protested against the mining company and its operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nickel mine</span>

A nickel mine is a mine that produces nickel. Some mines produce nickel primarily, while some mines produce nickel as a side-product of some other metal that has a higher concentration in the ore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bangka Island (North Sulawesi)</span> Island in Indonesia

Bangka Island is a small island located off the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Bangka is known for its unspoiled beaches and dive tourism. It belongs administratively to the district of East Likupang in the North Minahasa regency, North Sulawesi province. The island has three main coastal villages: Lihunu, Kahuku, and Libas. Controversy exists over a Chinese company's development of an iron ore mining facility on the island, as the company's permits were revoked by Indonesian courts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muara Bungo</span>

Muara Bungo is a town in the Indonesian province of Jambi, Sumatra. It is the capital of Bungo Regency, a regency (kabupaten) in Sumatra. It has a land area of 9.21 km2, and had a population of 21,243 as of the 2020 census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 21,600.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nickel mining in Indonesia</span> Overview about nickel mining in Indonesia

Nickel mining in Indonesia began with small-scale exploratory mining operations during the Dutch East Indies era and began to expand in the 1960s. Most of Indonesia's proven nickel reserves are located in the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahera, and the country has the largest annual production and reserves of nickel in the world.

Dairi Prima Mineral, officially PT Dairi Prima Mineral, is an Indonesian metal mining company and the owner of the Dairi mine in the Dairi Regency of North Sumatra, Indonesia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Niranjan, Ajit; Nugraha, Rizki (6 February 2021). "Proposed Indonesian zinc mine 'almost certain' to collapse". DW News . Archived from the original on 2022-08-19. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  2. 1 2 "RESOURCES AND RESERVES, DAIRI ZINC PROJECT" (PDF). 2012. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-02-07. Retrieved 2013-07-10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Simangunsong, Tonggo (2023-01-12). "Indonesian government accused of putting lives at risk with zinc mine permit". The Guardian . ISSN   0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2023-03-22. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  4. 1 2 "Brief History and Geography". www.ptdpm.co.id. Archived from the original on 2023-01-28. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  5. "PT. Dairi Prima Mineral". www.ptdpm.co.id. Archived from the original on 2023-02-25. Retrieved 2023-04-10.
  6. LERNER, M. With concs short and zinc prices up, miners can’t wait to dig in. American Metal Market , [s. l.], v. 114, n. 13, p. 22, 2006. Disponível em: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=20408780&site=eds-live&scope=site . Acesso em: 11 abr. 2023.
  7. Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, (July 6, 2022) Compliance Appraisal of a Complaint Regarding IFC’s Exposure to the Dairi Prima Mineral Mine in Indonesia Through an Investment in Postal Savings Bank of China Archived 2023-01-15 at the Wayback Machine
  8. Jakarta Administrative Court (July 2023). "Enter the case number 59/G/LH/2023/PTUN.JKT".