With both Copper and Gold now sitting at near all time highs, one can only speculate at how much the massive resource at the Panguna Mine in Bougainville is now valued at.
Valuations a few years ago when commodity prices were much lower, valued the resource at A$75 Billion, with A$6Billion required to bring the mine back into production.
"The Panguna mine would be the single major asset of an independent Bougainville. It was one of the world’s largest copper mines and at one point it accounted for two-fifths of PNG’s GDP. The asset has been valued at A$75 billion (K204 billion) and represents a high risk, high reward investment. The mine has estimated reserves of one billion tonnes of copper and 12 million ounces of gold, according to Porter Geo Consultancy. It has been estimated that the investment to get the mine production-ready would be about K16.3 billion (AUD$6 billion).
Currently, Bougainville Copper is jointly controlled by the PNG State and the ARB-owned Bougainville Minerals Limited, which both control a 36.4% share in the company. In March 2020, the PNG government reportedly said it would fully transfer its 36.4 per cent share to the ARB, but this has yet to occur.
Indeed, earlier this month, the Chairman of the Panguna Tangku’urang landowners group Vincent Bangki issued a statement demanding that the national government transfer its share to Bougainville Minerals, noting that ‘financial independence of our country can only come from the re-opening of Panguna’."
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