Member Country Report of Papua New Guinea - CCOP

and silver; and Lihir & Sinivit are producing only gold. Kainantu Mine (the 7 th mine) ownedby Barrick is under “Care and Maintenance”, because the resources been depleted andexploration would need to confirm and increase resources for further mining operations.Two new mines are under construction; Hidden Valley gold silver project owned byHarmony Gold Ltd and Newcrest Mining Ltd Joint Venture; and the Ramu Nickel Cobaltproject operated by China Metallurgy Company (MCC) Ltd.The construction of the mine at Hidden Valley is completed and undergoing tests; andwill be ready for production in the last quarter (November) of 2009. The mine is forecast toproduce 300,000oz of gold and 100,000t of silver.The resource at Ramu is estimated at 143 million tonnes at 1.01% nickel and 0.10%cobalt of which around 50% has been converted to reserve status. This gives a mine life inexcess of 20 years based on projected annual production of 33,000 tonnes of nickel and 3,280tonnes of cobalt contained in a high grade intermediate product. Production is expected in2010.Production Statistics 2008PNG Gold, Silver and Copper Production 2008MINE GOLD (Oz) Silver (Oz) Copper (t)Kainantu - - -Lihir 882,000.00 60,643.99 -OK Tedi 515,400.00 - 159,700.00Porgera 632,542.77 90,859.45 -Simberi 51,541.22 316,208.17 -Sinivit 6,902.80 876.00 -Tolukuma 39,889.41 122,007.08-TOTAL 2,128,276.20 590,594.69 159,700.00No major activities have been completed during the year.The major ongoing activities are the remapping of the geology and geochemistry ofthe Central Highlands of PNG at 100K scale. The project is funded by EU.1.3. Proposed Future ActivitiesMRA will continue to scan into digital format all of the 12,000 items held in theGeological Survey Library and to store these data systematically and make them readilyavailable to clients (exploration companies & researchers) on the MRA website.MRA will soon construct and fit out a rock and core storage shed and associatedlaboratories. All rock and core collections help in temporary storage will be shifted into thenew facility once completed.Other tasks to commence in 2009-2010 are :• edge-matching of existing geological map sheets to produce a seamless geologicalmap of Papua New Guinea, and• resolve issues of stratigraphic nomenclature that will arise as geological mappingaimed at edge-matching proceeds.These two tasks have seed funding from the World Bank Technical AssistanceProgramme.2 CCOP Member Country Report: PAPUA NEW GUINEA