Posts

Showing posts with the label Panguna Landowners Association

Countdown begins for Panguna mine reopening - Bougainvilleans key to mine’s success

Image
ROWAN CALLICK Plans are under way for the opening of one of the world’s biggest copper and gold mines, with resources worth about $US50 billion, as the China-driven commodities boom keeps rolling on. So far, so predictable, if awesome. But few people expected ever to hear of this vast pit ever again—except those canny investors who hung on to their shares for decades.   It is the Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea, where production was suspended—the owners insist, not closed—on May 15, 1989. Bougainville Copper Ltd—which is 53.58 percent owned by British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd, 19.06 percent by the Papua New Guinea Government, and 27.36 percent by other shareholders—believes it will cost about $US3 billion to reopen the mine.   The vast trucks and electricity pylons may have been blown up or rusted or cannibalised, but the resources in the mine have not, of course, been damaged or diminished over the last 21 years. It contains 3.5 million tonnes o

Countdown begins for Panguna mine reopening - Bougainvilleans key to mine’s success

Image
ROWAN CALLICK Plans are under way for the opening of one of the world’s biggest copper and gold mines, with resources worth about $US50 billion, as the China-driven commodities boom keeps rolling on. So far, so predictable, if awesome. But few people expected ever to hear of this vast pit ever again—except those canny investors who hung on to their shares for decades.   It is the Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea, where production was suspended—the owners insist, not closed—on May 15, 1989. Bougainville Copper Ltd—which is 53.58 percent owned by British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd, 19.06 percent by the Papua New Guinea Government, and 27.36 percent by other shareholders—believes it will cost about $US3 billion to reopen the mine.   The vast trucks and electricity pylons may have been blown up or rusted or cannibalised, but the resources in the mine have not, of course, been damaged or diminished over the last 21 years. It contains 3.5 million ton