By BAEAU TAI GLOBAL mining company Rio Tinto may consider re-opening the Panguna copper mine after the review of the Bougainville Copper Agreement. Mining Minister Sam Akoitai told a news conference yesterday that during his recent talks with Rio Tinto in London, “indications were very positive but they would make the decision themselves”. “Rio Tinto understands that the Papua new Guinea Government is considering reviewing the BCL agreement,” he said. He stressed that the review this time would involve the Autonomous Bougainville Government, the stakeholders, landowners and the national government. During the talks in London, Mr Akoitai focused on the PNG Government’s fiscal incentives in the mining industry that had attracted many small companies to carry out exploration work in the country. “I appealed to Rio Tinto that the attitude to and the attitude of the people had changed, and I hope big companies like mining giant CRA Ltd would come in to do more exploration.” The BCL agreement called for a review every seven years but the review had never taken place. The last one was due just before mining was suspended in 1989. Reports earlier this month that Mr Akoitai was meeting with Rio Tinto heads in London sent the stock upwards in BCL, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto by almost 50% to cross the A$1 mark for the first time in almost a year. Rio Tinto owns 54% of Bougainville Copper while the PNG Government holds 19%. Analysts say restarting the mine would cost more than US$1 billion (K3.2 billion) and take up to five years because mine infrastructure had been completely dismantled. A resource of around 625 million tonnes at 0.4% copper and 0.4% grams of gold per tonne remains in the ground at Panguna. Mr Akoitai gave an overview of PNG’s attendance to the convention in Toronto, Canada of the Prospectus and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) prior to the London talks, saying it was “successful”. He said there was a record of over 2,000 resource international investors going into the PNG booth, who showed huge interest in PNG. For the first time PNG showcased to the world’s annual mining convention its mineral prospects, mining operations, fiscal provisions and infrastructure on CD. However, he was rather disappointed that Mineral Resources Development Company, which was part of the government delegation to the convention did not produce any report on landowner issues in the country.
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