* "Geotechnical failure" at Indonesian mine
* Operations at Batu Hijau temporarily suspended
* Stock up as gold, copper prices rise
(Recasts first sentence, adds company statement, production
data)
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Newmont Mining Corp (NEM.N)
said on Tuesday it has temporarily suspended operations at a
copper and gold mine in Indonesia because of a rock slide at
one of the pit's walls.
Its Indonesian affiliate, PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara,
continues to process lower-grade ore from stockpiles at the
Batu Hijau mine, the Denver-based company said in a statement
expanding on an earlier filing with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
Newmont said there was a "geotechnical failure" on Sept. 18
and 19 in the west wall of the open-pit mine, which produces
most of Newmont's copper, along with a small amount of gold.
"PTNNT has temporarily suspended operations in the Batu
Hijau pit pending a geotechnical review," the SEC filing said.
"Work is underway to assess the cause of the slide and to
develop a plan for the safe resumption of mining activities in
the pit, in addition to analyzing any long term impacts to the
current mine plan, if any," Newmont's later press release
said.
It was too early to assess the impact on production and
revenue.
Batu Hijau uses an advanced monitoring system that measures
movement in the pit walls, so no workers were in the pit at the
time of the wall movement, Newmont said. Initial assessments
indicate nominal damage to infrastructure and equipment at the
pit, which is located on the remote island of Sumbawa, about
950 miles (1,530 km) east of Jakarta.
Newmont reported total second-quarter equity gold sales of
1.2 million ounces and copper sales of 47 million pounds.
Equity sales represent the portion of sales that Newmont owns
in joint ventures.
Of that total, Batu Hijau accounted for 48,000 ounces of
gold and most of the company's copper output. Some copper also
comes from Newmont's Phoenix mine in Nevada.
For 2009, the company expects equity gold sales from the
Indonesian mine of between 225,000 and 250,000 ounces, along
with between 210 million and 230 million pounds of copper.
Newmont stock was up almost 2 percent at $45.29 in
afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange as the prices
of both copper and gold rose on dollar weakness.
(Reporting by Steve James, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and
Matthew Lewis)
