K18.7 billion gold, copper mine to begin work soon

Malum Nalu | The National aka The Loggers Times | September 8, 2017
The US$6 billion (about K18.7 billion) Wafi gold and copper mine in Morobe will begin work this year, says Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel.
Wafi is one of the major resource projects that the ministerial economic committee, through the new national energy authority, will drive in the 25-point 100-day plan,  others being the PNG LNG Project, Papua LNG Project and Western LNG.
“Early works (are set to begin) on the Wafi-Golpu US$6 billion gold and copper project over in Morobe,” Abel told NBC Talkback Radio yesterday.
“All they want is some assurance around fiscal stability that there’s to be no sudden changes to the fiscal regime.
“They are not asking for any concession.
“They just want to know that this is the regime and it will not be changing dramatically.
“They will begin early works this year.
“That early works includes digging down so that they can drive in under that ore body because it’s a block-cut mine where you cut from underneath.
“That’s going to involve spending of significant amounts of money.
“They’re just looking for some assurance.
“That money will be spent to create jobs and economic activity; going forward, a lot of revenue for the country also.”
Abel said the 100-day plan included bringing Wafi and other major resource projects online.
“There are a number of projects that we’ve been talking about for some time now,” he said.
“I’m just trying to focus down on them to get them across the line, stimulate investment, bring in jobs and create foreign exchange.
“They are private sector-driven projects, but they are also concessional financing and aid-type projects.
“We’ll run through and see which are the easy-win projects that we can bring across the line.”

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Landowners Plan To Block Hidden Valley Mine Road

Bradley Mariori | Post Courier | September 5, 2017

Landowners of Hidden Valley in Bulolo District, Morobe Province are planning to block off roads leading to the mine site today.

This is in response to what they termed as the unfavourable response to their demands which they presented in a petition last Thursday.

The landowners walked out of the meeting with the mining company and decided to take action to get the attention of the government.

The petition by the landowners lapsed on 26th August.

Their demand was for the mining company to review all contracts and give landowner companies greater opportunities to participate in contracts and other spin off benefits to come off from the mine development.

The contracts include labor hire, transport hire, bus services, fuel cartage, general cargo, waste management, environment monitoring and rehabilitation, travel agency, boiler shop contract, crusher contract, camp services and maintenance, heavy equipment (assembling and dismantling), security, catering services, and all contracts given to non landowners including foreign companies be given direct to landowner companies

Landowner spokesman, Andrew Kupa of Seproku Limited said they walked out of the meeting with Harmony Mine because their demands were not met.

“We have given them 14 days to respond to our demands and they have not responded in our favor or responded according to the memorandum of agreement we signed,” Mr Kupa said.

“It will be a peaceful demonstration by blocking the road and we will get those people in higher authorities to come down and address these issues.

“In the last seven years, we have not been benefiting from NKW which Harmony Gold said is a landowner company.

“Contracts coming to the little landowner companies are the way to go about and not NKW as an umbrella company which does not benefit us.

“It’s a matter of giving us contracts and everything will go back to normal,” said Mr Kupa.

AusAID to partner with mining industry to deliver ‘aid’

Peter Aitsi and Bruce Davis can’t keep a straight face – just one more way for the Australian taxpayers to subsidise their mining industry!

THIS WOULD BE HILARIOUS IF IT WASN’T SO PATHETIC

EVEN MONTY PYTHON COULDN’T COME UP WITH ANYTHING SO RIDICULOUS…

Aust to assist Newcrest facilitate projects in PNG

The National | September 1, 2017

AUSTRALIA has entered into a partnership with Newcrest Mining Limited to facilitate support on projects in Papua New Guinea.
Australian High Commissioner Bruce Davis and Newcrest country manager Peter Aitsi signed an agreement yesterday.
The first year will be committed to:

• Scholarships for Diploma of Nursing;
• Australian awards scholarships in midwifery;
•  Workshops on extractive Industries transparency initiative;  and,
•  A mineral economics course to be delivered under the Pacific leadership and governance precinct.

Davis said it reflected Australia’s focus on engaging businesses to assist in development challenges.
“The approach recognises that the private sector has the means and increasingly the motivation to contribute to the development outcomes as part of their core business,” Davis said.
“It also recognises that the private sector are key players in addressing and improving the business environment, not just for themselves but also for their suppliers, buyers, employees and their employee’s families.
“Newcrest is on such company. Newcrest’s confidence in Papua New Guinea as an investment destination matches the Australian High Commission’s positive long-term outlook for Papua New Guinea.”
Aitsi said the company’s commitment to development was for the long-term.
“Newcrest already has a long record of engagement in PNG. And with 40 per cent of our global assets in this country, we hope to be a partner to Papua New Guinea for decades to come,” he said.

Self interested foreign mining industry threatens and bullies new MPs

Peter Aitsi addresses the new MPs

Proposed amendments must not affect revenue: Chamber

Cedric Patjole | PNG Loop | August 20, 2017

Members of Parliament have been informed that proposed amendments to the mining act must not affect investors’ confidence in the country.

PNG country manager for Newcrest Mining Limited and vice-president of the PNG Chamber of Mining and Petroleum, Peter Aitsi, recently told new MPs that regulatory frameworks that are detrimental to investment will have a direct impact on revenue streams for the country.

The comments were made during the National Parliament Induction Programme.

Speaking to recently elected MPs, Aitsi said they needed to be aware of the delicate correlation between PNG remaining an investment destination as well as regulations introduced for the country.

He said this when stressing how signi cant revenue streams from the mining sector contributed to the country’s purse.

“As new members of parliament, you have to be very aware of that sensitive relationship between ensuring that PNG remains an attractive investment destination, and the aspirations of our nation in terms of our legal frameworks that we develop.

“Because a change that is detrimental to investment will have a direct impact in those revenue streams. So you need to be very much aware of that,” said Aitsi.

Aitsi’s comments come in light of the proposed amendments to the Mining Act which the Chamber has continually emphasised must not scare investors away.

To drive home the importance of the mining sector, Aitsi revealed that the industry contributed 10 percent to the country’s total revenue, with personal income tax (PIT) the major contributor with just over 20 percent.

He said so not only did the state receive revenue through mineral production tax and dividends, but through employment from PIT.

“This means we need to sustain employment in order to receive the kind of revenue to look after our country and growing demand.

“What we’re promoting in terms of our regulatory framework, our fiscal regime and our regulatory must be attractive to global market,” Aitsi said.

Lihir to get Newcrest on target

An overall view of the Cadia mine in Orange, NSW.

Paul Garvey | The Australian | 25 July 2017

For much of its recent history, Newcrest Mining has been relying on its Cadia mine in NSW to make up for the problems at its Lihir mine in Papua New Guinea. Now, the roles are being reversed.

With Cadia out of action ­following an earthquake earlier this year, it was a record quarter from the oft-maligned Lihir that helped the Melbourne-based miner reach its annual production guidance.

Lihir produced 276,230 ounces of gold during the June quarter, up 20.3 per cent for the period in what was a record quarter for the operation.

The strong performance of Lihir — which had historically been the cause of several operational headaches during its early years under Newcrest ownership — helped make up for the sharp decrease in output at Cadia, which was hit by an earthquake in mid-April.

One of two panel caves at Cadia has since restarted production, with the outstanding panel scheduled to come back into operation during the ­September quarter.

The unexpected outage and the cost of remediation work at Cadia will likely weigh on Newcrest’s earnings when it posts it full-year result next month, with the costs associated with the ­incident likely to show up as an exceptional item in its accounts.

Newcrest managing director Sandeep Biswas said the record numbers out of Lihir reflected the “relentless drive for improvement” at the mine.

“Given the disruption to ­production at Cadia due to the seismic event, the overall ­performance this quarter was ­remarkable and demonstrates the resilience of Newcrest’s ­assets,” Mr Biswas said.

Newcrest’s total output for the quarter came in at 551,815 ounces of gold and 12,968 tonnes of ­copper, down from 598,602 ­ounces of gold and 22,074 tonnes of ­copper in the March quarter.

The outage at Cadia, which has historically been Newcrest’s highest-margin mine, meant the company’s all-in sustaining cost margin fell to $US360 an ounce during the June quarter, down from $US521 per ounce in the ­previous three months.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Paul Hissey said that while he ­expected the Cadia incident to affect Newcrest’s upcoming results, the company had been able to limit the damage with improved output from its other key mines.

“While events at Cadia appear largely beyond Newcrest’s control, this result shows that the company has been able to move other levers to broadly mitigate the impact,” he said.

Brokerage Goldman Sachs says the cost guidance in the full year results will be a key driver of sentiment towards Newcrest.

On the exploration front, Newcrest revealed it had applied for 40 exploration tenements in Ecuador, which is emerging as a new gold exploration hotspot. Newcrest has already entered Ecuador through its investment in SolGold, whose Cascabel copper-gold discovery is shaping up as particularly promising.

Newcrest spent another $US40 million on a further 4.5 per cent stake in SolGold during the quarter, taking its interest in the London and Canadian-listed group to 14.54 per cent.

Shares in Newcrest closed 18c, or 0.9 per cent, higher at $19.76.

Harmony Gold achieves fatality free quarter in SA and Papua New Guinea

Harmony Gold Mining’s Kusasalethu mine in South Africa

If a fatality free quarter is a ‘milestone’, how many deaths are normally recorded?

Harmony Gold Mining has announced that its South African and Papua New Guinean operations achieved a milestone fatality free quarter during the June 2017 quarter.

Mining Review Africa | 14 July 2017

Harmony gold’s gold production for the 30 June 2017 financial year is estimated to be 1.088 million oz, which exceeds production guidance of 1.05 million oz. Underground recovered grade increased for a fifth consecutive year to 5.07 g/t.

“We will continue to focus on increasing cash margins through safe, predictable and profitable production” says Peter Steenkamp, CEO of Harmony.

Harmony will announce its operating and financial results for the year ended 30 June, 2017 on Thursday 17 August 2017, during a live presentation at the Hilton Hotel, Sandton, at 09h00 South African time.

In October last year Harmony Gold completed the acquisition of Hidden Valley mine in Papua New Guinea.

The Hidden Valley mine is an open pit gold and silver mine, jointly owned and managed as part of the joint venture between Harmony and Newcrest Mining.

The mine is situated in the highly prospective area of the Morobe province in Papua New Guinea, some 210 km northwest of Port Moresby.

The major gold and silver deposits of the Morobe goldfield and Hidden Valley are hosted in the Wau Graben.

The Hidden Valley-Kaveroi and Hamata pits, located approximately 6 km apart, are in operation.

Ore mined is also treated at the Hidden Valley processing plant.

How resource companies exploit a corrupt and dysfunctional government

There has been a barrage of media recently about mining companies teaming up with a range of parters to deliver health-care and other services direct to the community.

Newcrest Mining and the Australian government have announced a partnership to improve maternal health, Exxon-Mobil is partnering the Cancer Foundation and The Voice, Barrick Gold is delivering agriculture training in Porgera.

Praise be to the resource companies, willing and able to step in where government fails its people – and no matter the role these same companies play in causing the very diseases, illnesses and other problems they are so happy to patch up with their band-aid PR!

But there is an even more sinister side to these good news stories that further illustrates how mining and other resource companies feed off a corrupt and dysfunctional government.

If government was doing its job and delivering decent basic services to the population, mining and resource companies would not have the opportunity to appear as ‘knights in shining armour’ the good news stories would disappear and, most importantly, customary landowners would not feel compelled to give away their land in the desperate hope that mining and logging companies might provide some basic services.

Resource companies are able to thrive in PNG because of, not despite, a corrupt and dysfunctional government. They rely on bad governance to open the doors to what they most desire – land and the resources it contains.

No matter the environmental and community destruction, their logging and mining cause, no matter the deaths, the violence against women, the unwanted pregnancies, the rape and prostitution, the pollution of rivers and loss of sustainable livelihoods when they can parade their social conscience in the media and have us all believe they are our saviours – just as long as we continue to give them what is most precious to us, OUR LAND!