Seems to still be on hold till later in month as indicated in...

Seems to still be on hold till later in month as indicated in this PNG article


How will MCC respond if marine dumping is ruled out by the Courts?
In November we posed the question of how MCC, the Chinese State owned enterprise that is the majority owner of the Ramu nickel mine in Papua New Guinea, and Highlands Pacific, its junior partner, will react if the courts finally say no to their marine waste dumping plans.

The original article can be reviewed here ? ?Will MCC instruct Somare to change the law again??

With the National Court due to hand down its decision later this month on the landholders application for a permanent injunction stopping the waste dumping, its is timely for us to reconsider that question, and , in particular, whether MCC, Highlands Pacific and their lawyers might already have drafted changes to the law that, if passed by Parliament, would allow the marine dumping whatever the decision of the courts.

Prime Minister Michael Somare has already shown his willingness to sell out the national interest to foreign resource companies and change the law to suit their demands. Amendments to the Forestry Act to suit the logging industry and last year?s amendments to the Environment Act bear witness to this.

Although Somare is currently laid up in hospital in Singapore, with a National election around the corner in 2012, presumably his National Alliance colleagues will be equally keen to keep potential donors to party funds on-side.

The other options available to MCC and Highlands Pacific, in the event the court does grant a permanent injunction barring marine waste dumping, or creates further delays by ordering more oceanic testing, will hardly seem enticing:

Appealing the National court decision to the Supreme court could be a lengthy process and would offer no guarantee of success
Looking for a land based tailings storage option, while both economically and technically feasible, would not sit well with MCC and HP as they want to begin operations immediately regardless of the impacts and would not enjoy the loss of face
Abandoning the mine altogether would probably not be an option. While MCC likes to remind us they have invested $1.6 billion, that is a drop in the ocean for a company the size of MCC and much of that money has not been spent in PNG but invested in Chinese goods and services, so economically they could bear the loss. But why walk away from a fully constructed mine leaving it for the likes of BHP or Rio Tinto to walk in?
So a change to the law, although morally and ethically completely outrageous and wrong, seems the most likely option.

Another company that will be looking very closely at the outcome from the court case is Perth based Marengo Mining who has signed a deal with another Chinese company, China Non-ferrous Metals, to develop its Yandera gold and copper mine just up the road from the Ramu operation.

Marengo also wants to dump its mine waste into the sea, in even greater quantities than the Ramu mine and with even greater levels of toxic chemicals. A successful outcome for the Madang coastal landowners will probably also rule out marine dumping from Yandera.