News: NCM UPDATE 1-Papua New Guinea PM Marape urges miners to go ahead with projects

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Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape on Monday urged mining investors to get on with developing their resources, pushing for more downstream processing in the country and more local employment.

"You must show some progress, I don’t want warehousing of licenses," Marape told a conference in Sydney, in comments directed at foreign investors.

The biggest undeveloped mining resource in the Pacific nation is the Wafi-Golpu copper-gold project, owned by Australia's Newcrest Mining (NCM) and South Africa's Harmony Gold Mining HARJ.J .

The project has long been stuck on the drawing board, partly due to a battle with the government over how big a share of the project's gold output would go to the PNG government.

Marape has been pressing for PNG to receive a bigger share of the benefits from mining and energy projects since he first became prime minister in 2019, and so far has succeeded in renegotiating deals with energy giants ExxonMobil Corp XOM.N and TotalEnergies TTEF.PA on their gas projects.

"We understand you are not a charity but please take my people with you," he told the mining and petroleum conference.