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Gazi Abbas Shahid
Starting as a ground reporter back in his home UT of Jammu and Kashmir, Gazi has been a part of the news industry for well over a decade. While he finds every type of news engrossing, politics, partic ... Read More
Indonesia Gold Mines: There are more than 50 Muslim-majority countries in the world, and many of the them are ranked among the wealthiest nations on the planet, primarily due to the vast reserves of natural resources they possess, including including, oil, natural gas, rare earth minerals, and precious metals like gold and silver.
But did you know that none of the oil-rich Muslim countries have the largest deposits of gold in the Islamic world? None of the Islamic ‘powers’ such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, or any other Gulf nation hold the distinction.
The Muslim country which boasts the distinction of having the largest gold mine is located in our backyard; Indonesia, India’s neighbor and friend, has the largest gold mine among Muslim countries.
According to a 2023 report by the World Gold Council, Indonesia, home to 207 million (approximately 87 percent) Muslims, the highest in any country on the planet, has the largest gold mine in the Islamic world.
The Grasberg Mine, managed and operated by PT Freeport Indonesia– a joint venture between US-based Freeport-McMoRan and Indonesia’s state-owned PT Mineral Industri Indonesia (MIND ID)– has vast reserves of gold and copper, and produced 72 million tonnes of ore in 2023.
Earlier, the Grasberg mine was reliant on open-pit mining, but has now shifted to low-cost, underground mining, currently featuring three operating underground mines (Grasberg Block Cave, Deep Mill Level Zone and Big Gossan) and four concentrators.
The Grasberg mine is located in the remote highlands of the Sudirman mountain range in the Papua province of Indonesia, near Puncak Jaya, the highest mountain peak in the province. As per geologists, the area came into being due to the shifting of the earth’s tectonic plates, which pushed the mineral resources buried deep within the planet’s womb to the surface.
The gold mine provides employment to around 20,000 people, and its vastness can be gauged from the fact that it has its own airport and port.
Notably, Indonesia does not feature in the list of world’s top gold producers, a distinction held by China, which milled an estimated 380 metric tons of gold in 2024.
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