clean energy for lihir.

ARTICLE FROM THE POST COURIER.

Clean energy for Lihir.
LIHIR Gold Limited is reaching new heights in Papua New Guinea’s mining industry by converting to clean energy for its power supply.
The company’s new 30-megawatt geothermal power station is at full production after completing commissioning last week.
Lihir Gold Limited is also on its way to announce a healthy profit for this year with the introduction of the additional geothermal power station.
The $US50 million (K162 million) facility will reduce power costs at the gold mine and process plant by $US15 million (K48 million) every year.
Managing director Neil Swan said based on the annual gold production of 700,000 ounces, the power station would reduce cash costs by an estimated $US20 (K65) per ounce.
He said the geothermal power station represented a major step forward for Lihir Gold and the new power station would reduce the company’s reliability on heavy fuel for power generation. More than 60 per cent of its power requirements were now being generated from geothermal energy and to top it, this was at a time when world oil prices continued to escalate.
“It is also a significant environmental achievement replacing fuel oil as an energy source with naturally occurring geothermal steam which otherwise would be discharged as waste,” Mr Swan said.
Mining Minister Sam Akoitai said the commissioning of the power plant was good news for the Papua New Guinea economy and demonstrated the Government’s strong commitment towards encouraging growth and development of key projects such as Lihir.
The power station lifts Lihir’s geothermal generation capacity to 36 megawatt after including the smaller six megawatt plant which had been operating since 2003.
Mr Swan said the company had already begun expansion of the new 30MW plant though addition of further generators, lifting output by another 20MW.
The additional 2MW units are scheduled to be completed by June next year, providing Lihir with a total 56MW of geothermal capacity, sufficient to meet all of the company’s power requirements at that time.
Lihir is also investigating the potential for further steam driven generation units to power an increase in the company’s gold processing capacity and the company recently announced plans for a expansion of its processing plant through the addition of a flotation circuit which will lift annual gold production by an average 140,000 ounces a year from 2007.
“We have the reliability of the operation over the past couple of years and the geothermal power expansion will reduce operating costs sharply,” Mr Swan said.
“Furthermore, our gold production is expected to increase significantly in the second half of the year as we begin higher grade segments of the Lienetz ore body and we are also about to begin construction of the flotation expansion.
“All these factors suggest a significant step up in profitability in the second half of this year and a bright future for the company.”