THE Special Mining Lease Osikaiyang Association (SMLOA) and the Autonomous Bougainville Government prefer Bougainville Copper Limited as the developer of Panguna mine.
Outgoing chairman of SMLOA Lawrence Daveona said today’s chances of BCL’s preference over other developers has increased to 100 per cent.
“BCL today is majority owned by Bougainvilleans (53.84 per cent), ABG (36.4 per cent) and landowners (17.4 per cent).
“We consider this as the best equity structure so far by any one. Share transfers must be affected immediately and I call on the ABG and the National Government to make this happen, an updated shareholding registry of BCL,” Mr Daveona said.
The preference is based on the majority equity shareholdings which have buy back options.
Another issue is the outstanding environment liabilities which they argue will be borne by BCL because the landowners believe it has an obligation to do so having left such legacy issues while being a shareholder of Rio Tinto.
Also, under the new shareholding arrangement, ABG and landowners will want BCL to rebuild its standing in the mining industry worldwide.
They said intellectual property ownership still remains with BCL and implementation process of reopening the mine will be speedily achieved by BCL which is one of the key operational elements.
BOC Price at posting:
29.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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