Reuters reported that production at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold's giant Indonesia mine gradually resumed as workers returned following a strike and two cargoes carrying 65,000 tonnes of concentrate were ready for shipping on Friday.

The union representing around 8,000 workers at the Grasberg mine said that they had struck a deal to end a strike that began on July 4, though further talks and safety checks at the mine effectively meant work began on Thursday.

Mr Virgo Solossa union official said that "The talks were finalized on Wednesday evening, so everything started on Thursday morning. The production has gradually stabilized while shipment resumed on the same morning because there were still stockpiles left at the port site."

The eight day strike crippled production and operations at a mine with the biggest recoverable copper reserves and largest gold reserves and helped drive copper prices to three month highs last week. London copper edged higher on Friday as the dollar weakened on concerns over US debt.

A shipping source said that workers used concentrate stocks at the port to load a 45,000 tonne ship bound for Spain and another 20,000 tonne cargo vessel for PT Smelting's copper smelter on Indonesia's Java Island. We filled up 14,000 tonnes more to the cargo ship that's bound for Spain. That was one of our first activities. Another 11,000 tonne cargo bound for China was still waiting to be loaded.

Mr Virgo Solossa said that if we had held for another two days, the company could have declared force majeure, because the ships were stuck. Freeport lost USD 675 million every day since our first day of strike.

Union leaders was due to start pay talks with the US miner on July 20th 2011 as they push for a doubling of salaries for workers earning USD 1.50 per hour since they say other Freeport workers around the world get 10 times that.

(Sourced from Reuters)