Carlos Paath – The Mimika Regency government in Papua has asked the central government to push forward talks with Freeport Indonesia in order to speed up the reopening of the company's Grasberg mine.

"We asked the Ministry of State Enterprise to take immediate action because there are many people who cannot work right now, while 80 percent of Mimika's regional budget comes from Freeport," Mimika mayor Abdul Muis said on Wednesday.

Abdul said at least 1,000 workers were currently out of work waiting for the mining to resume. Abdul also demanded the government to renegotiate the contract with Freeport Indonesia.

"I support the contract renegotiation, we should involve the regional administration and community leaders..." Abdul said, before adding "don't ever dream we will be able to solve problems in Papua."

The head of the Mimika legislative council, Trifena Tinal, said a series of talks between the government and Freeport Indonesia's management had failed to arrive at a solution.

"In Mimika we always tried to have a discussion with Freeport, in Mimika we are still poor in a very rich land," Trifena said. "Trillions of rupiah are sent to the central government while we in Mimika only got a few billion."

Trifena said the contract with Freeport Indonesia should be immediately evaluated and the regional government should be allowed to own shares in the company.

Trifena also demanded Freeport Indonesia distribute the compensation to the families of the 28 victims who died during the tunnel collapse at the Grasberg mine.

"This is a horrible tragedy and we hope the compensation for the family will be distributed immediately," he said. A tunnel in the underground training facility at the Big Gossan area of Freeport's Grasberg mine collapsed on May 14, trapping 38 workers inside. Ten were rescued, but 28 others were found dead.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said recently he would wait on the results of an investigation before acting.

"We'll make a decision this weekend as to whether or not the open-pit mining can continue," Jero said. "Our first priority will remain safety at workplaces." He added that the team had declared the open pit to be safe, except for a few areas vulnerable to landslides.

But Jero said the government would not allow mining activities to resume before then, despite the results of an investigation and requests from both Freeport and the Mimika government.

The Indonesian unit of Arizona-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold briefly resumed open-pit mining production on May 28, but after a worker was killed in a separate accident, the government asked the company to suspend operations until the government investigation was completed. The probe was initially forecast to take up to three months.

Freeport declared force majeure on June 12 on the shipment of copper and gold to its customers pending separate investigations by the government and the company.

The firm said in statement that the stoppage at the Papua mine – the world's second largest copper mine – resulted in an impact of 80 million pounds of copper and 80,000 ounces of gold as of June 11, and that it would continue to book a loss of 3 million pounds of copper and 3,000 ounces of gold a day until operations resume.