Ann: $8.4m capital raising to advance PNG and WA gold projects, page-56

Dwayne,

I applaud your interest in environmental management and believe mining companies should operate to world’s best practice anywhere in the world - across all indices of performance, including environmental. However a few points to note.

Modern conventional gold plants have a cyanide destruction circuit which destroys the cyanide before it goes into the tailings (irrespective of whether it’s stored on land or deposited in deep sea tailings). There is therefore no impact on the environment from cyanide. Deep sea tailings placement has been used successfully for decades now in this environment and has proven to eliminate long-term risk with very low environmental impact. I’m my opinion, it is the perfect solution for storage of tailings in tropical environments with high seismicity. Of course, if the objection to DSTP is founded on emotive rather than scientific or good-practice grounds, then there is really nothing further to comment on.

Provided it is developed to world’s best standards, the Misima project represents a transformative opportunity for local communities. I share your concern that the communities directly impacted should benefit significantly from the mining project. While making ethical investment choices is laudable, one might caution against well-meaning but perhaps paternalistic assumptions that PNGeans are ignorant or powerless regarding development decisions affecting their country — with the recent nationalistic tone of the Marape government on Porgera signalling otherwise.

DYOR and good luck all.