UNBEKNOWN to the rest of the world, there was a very high-level visit to the ramshackle Panguna Mine in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea recently.
Outside of Escondida and Grasberg, Panguna remains the largest copper ore body in the Pacific region. It has been closed since 1987 following a landowner uprising which led to civil war on the rich PNG island.
The mine once accounted for more than half of PNG's GDP, the other half being Australian aid.
Our spies report that a Rio director was accompanied by Bougainville Copper Ltd managing director Peter Taylor and a senior member of AusAid, in a two-day, low-key inspection of the mine.
People that know about such matters reckon it would cost a cool $A3 billion to get the mine back to full production but in Rio, or BHP terms, that's small change.
Rio has managed to hold on to its controlling 67 per cent interest in Bougainville Copper despite several unreported bids by Chinese interests to garner ownership of the massive porphyry copper/gold ore body.
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