Australian mining contractor Macmahon Holdings has secured 34 months of work at PT Freeport Indonesia’s new Kucing Liar underground copper-gold mine in Central Papua, Indonesia.
ASX-listed Macmahon said the first 12 months of the contract would generate A$36 million of revenue. The balance would be “agreed annually”. Kucing Liar’s current mine plan runs through to 2041.
The Kucing Liar underground deposit lies on the southern flank of and underneath the southern portion of the Grasberg openpit. Freeport McMoRan-controlled PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) currently produces from the Grasberg Block Cave (GBC), Big Gossan, and Deep Mill Level Zone (DMLZ) underground mines. The complex is expected to produce 8.4 billion pounds of copper at about 1.7Blb per annum and 7 million ounces of gold at c1.4Mozpa from 2025 to 2029 inclusive.
PTFI started a 10-year mine development project at Kucing Liar – which has been called the “future of Freeport” – in 2022. It has spent more than US$800 million to date and has circa-$4 billion still to invest.
At 90,000 tonnes of ore production per day when it ramps up by 2030, Kucing Liar will take Grasberg complex underground production to 240,000tpd and beyond.
Kucing Liar will be the seventh underground mine brought into production at the PTFI complex. Five of these mines used cave mining techniques for production. PTFI has been successfully developing and operating caving mines since the 1980s and is recognised as a leader in the field.
