yutok
Monday 24th January, 2011
No to seabed mining
Why is our government rushing in dishing out exploration and mining licenses at an alarming rate?
Is it that we don’t have other options in export earnings to subsidise economic gains and improve social indicators as government, mining companies and Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) asserting?
Is mining sustainable and would improve the basic living conditions of the indigenous citizens of PNG like agriculture, fisheries, tourism etc are providing now?
Deep sea mining is the first of its kind in the world brought on by our leaders for testing hence the coastal people of New Ireland (NIP) and East New Britain (ENB) will be used as guinea pigs to test new technologies.
Our government through MRA dished out exploration licenses to Nautilus all over PNG waters.
Nearly 75 per cent of our seas are under exploration license areas of Nautilus but the Post-Courier page 3 Wednesday January 19 revealed project 1 is now granted mining lease.
Nautilus have 11 solwara project sites and imagine how all Solwara projects will affect our sea and people depending on it for 20-50 years and beyond.
MRA and Department of Mining is foolish in brain and or self-centred by the lust for money than the protection and love for the land, sea and environment as God directed human kind to treasure and be managers over them.
ENB and NIP please stand up and voice your concern like Madang people against Ramu Nickel!
You can get your sea back and enjoy the beauty and providence of the sea through God than being lured by typical empty promises of the international mining corporations!
Duwigon Iyampon, POM
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Deep sea mining lease granted
ReplyDeleteBy MOHAMMAD BASHIR
Rousing times are ahead in the mining and petroleum industry when the PNG Government created history by granting the first world deep sea mining lease to Nautilus Minerals Inc (TSX & AIM: NUS) of Canada for the development of its Solwara 1 project in the Bismarck Sea.
Besides the multi-billion dollar PNG LNG project, the deep sea mining is a new frontier which has attracted interest from even the United States which sent a team of experts to PNG late last year to learn PNG’s approval regime for such venture. The US is only familiar with deep sea and offshore development of gas and oil projects only like many other countries.
Nautilus CEO Stephen Rogers said the granting of the mining lease on the Solwar1 project was an important step for his company and PNG.
“This historic decision to grant a lease over a deep sea deposit is a major step forward for this new frontier, and it reflects the fact that the Solwara 1 project is being recognised as an exciting, commercially valuable undertaking,” he said.
The lease covers an area of about 59km2 surrounding Solwara 1, 50km north of Rabaul where Nautilus intends to mine high-grade copper and gold deposits on the seafloor, at depths of about 1600 metres.
The mining lease has been granted for an initial 20 year term and the PNG Government has retained an option to take up to a 30 per cent stake in the Solwara 1 project as a joint venture partner. The option is exercisable within one month and if exercised, the Government will contribute funds to the project in proportion to its interest, including its share of the exploration and development costs incurred to date.
Nautilus will now press ahead to conclude its strategic partnering discussions and continue the development of the Solwara 1 deposit, which has a stated resource of 2.2 million tonnes of ore, including an indicated resource of 870,000 tonnes at grades of 6.8 per cent copper and 4.8 g/t gold. When it commences production, which is expected about two and a half years after full project sanction, Nautilus plans to produce ore at an annual rate of more than 1.3 million tonnes, containing about 80,000 tonnes of copper and 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold. Ongoing deep-sea drilling is also expected to lead to expansion of the resource base before the start of production.
CEO Rogers further said: “We are grateful to the PNG government for its support and welcome its participation in the project. We look forward to working closely with the Government on Solwara 1, which will generate significant investment for the economies of New Ireland, East New Britain and PNG.
“The successful development of Solwara 1 will pave the way for the expansion of operations to other seafloor deposits in the future, creating an exciting growth industry further benefiting PNG,” he said.
Seabed mining, a risky investment
ReplyDeleteSo the government of Papua New Guinea has gone ahead and granted a deep sea mining lease to Nautilus Minerals to develop its copper-gold project in the Manus Basin. We are told that the 20 year lease covers an area of about 60 square kilometers around the Solwara 1 project. The stretch of sea in the Manus Basin is very deep but, again, we are led to believe that Nautilus, using state-of art- technology, has been exploring the sea floor for mineral deposits. And from the studies, the project aims to produce about 80,000 tonnes of copper, along with 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of gold annually from the project.
We are told that the project is estimated to cost about K1.04 billion and the PNG government has retained an option to take up to a 30 percent stake in the project as a joint venture partner. This option, we understand, is exercisable within one month. Should the government decide to exercise this option; it will contribute funds to the project in proportion to its interest, including its share of the costs incurred to date.
It is quite interesting to read that the government is interested in taking up equity in the seabed mining project.
The idea might be noble, given that we all like to make some money in any resource project that takes off in this country, however deep sea mining is something new. It is a new frontier as there are not many projects like this around the world that we can learn from.
The Minister for Mining, John Pundari and his department must come clear and tell us if we, as a country, understand what we are entering into. The people of this country have a right to know before the Government squanders tax payer’s money on, what we firmly believe, is an ill informed decision.
It is public knowledge that exploration activity has been pursued in the Manus basin by Nautilus and its joint ventures partners for some years.
From this work, the assay values of surface samples collected through remotely operated vehicle and dredging looks promising.
This is confirmed by independent expert opinions we have sought. The same experts tell us that similar conclusions are also drawn for samples collected through shallow exploratory drill holes but the most important question is whether it has sufficient reserves or resources to develop a seabed mining.
We are informed that from submersible observation of submarine hydrothermal deposits around the Pacific Rim and East Pacific Rise, it is recognised that the distribution of the sulfide chimneys or sulfide mound are irregular and it is quite impossible to do block modeling to quantify the resources.
Furthermore the super high grade does not quantify a resource to make it economical viable, we are told. When we go back a few years ago, drilling of the Pacmanus site in Manus Basin by Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) failed to discover massive sulphide deposits below the chimney structures. This is found to be true in similar observations that are made at other sites around the world.
What Papua New Guinea needs to know is whether there are sufficient resources in the Solwara 1 project for the government to be talking about taking equity in the project?
This is a question that needs to be addressed by the geological informed staff of the Minerals Resources Authority (MRA) and the Department of Mining.
The other question we have that needs to be answered as well is the high lead and arsenic content in the sulfide chimneys in the Manus Basin.
Did MRA did a due diligence check on the environmental implication for such heavy and toxic elements? We urged the Government not to be deceptive when it comes to dealing with resources on the ocean floor.
We are talking about hard rock and it is not manganese noodles or submarine placer deposits like those of the West African coast where it can be easily mined by dredging.