PJV highlights challenges at mining conference
Strategic partnerships with its communities, government, donors, NGO’s, employees, and shareholders has enabled the Porgera Joint Venture operation overcome its challenges and deliver benefits over the last three decades.
Barrick (Niugini) Limited executive director, Dr Ila Temu said this at the recent PNG Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference in Sydney, Australia earlier this month.
The conference was hosted by the PNG Chamber of Mines and Petroleum.
Dr Temu highlighted critical challenges that the Porgera operation has had to deal with in recent times and emphasized that the important factor that has enabled the operation to see through these challenges, has been partnerships.
He spoke of the flooding issues in the open pit from high rainfall, the west wall failure leading to the Yarik sinkholes in 2016 and the significant consequences to operations.
Additionally, the Lukulama landslip in March 2016 which severed the only transport link for supplies and employees to reach the mine site.
Others highlighted included issues on the Highlands Highway, illegal mining, the Hides Transmission Line (HTL) and the February earthquake which caused significant damage to the Porgera JV’s power generation plant in Hides resulting in a loss of power supply to the Porgera site and the Porgera valley community.
“Partnership with our shareholders, various levels of government, operating communities, employees is an important part of our operation in trying to address some of the challenges we have,” Dr Temu said.
Despite the many significant challenges Dr Temu said Porgera has also delivered significant benefits.
Over US$1 billion had been paid in taxes and royalties, facilitated over US$155million in infrastructure through community development programs and tax cred it scheme and over US$304million paid to Porgeran businesses.
On corporate social responsibility, Dr Temu highlighted the achievements of the Porgera District Women’s Association as a case study, from taking over the mine’s cleaning contract to contracting their own machinery to the Porgera underground mine operation.
Other community development programs and projects have resulted in the investment of more than US$20million to date.
Dr Temu also spoke on resettlement, a partnership exercise with Government to address another of the mines’ challenges.
“We hope in 2019 to finalise a resettlement action plan and start implementation soon after.”
Dr Temu also told the conference of the SML Extension Project with the current lease set to expire on 17th August 2019.
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