Hidden Valley on target

Caption: An aerial view of the Hidden Valley Mine Project area stretching down to Hamata. Picture by SIMON ANAKAPU of MOROBE MINING JOINT VENTURES.

 

Work at the Hidden Valley gold mine project outside Wau in Morobe province is progressing well and on schedule with production to start next year.

Remote Hidden Valley near the border of Central and Gulf provinces has become a hive of activity as Morobe Mining Joint Ventures, comprising of Harmony Gold and Newcrest, work on a project that promises to transform the famous gold mining towns of Wau and Bulolo.

To date, an enormous 26 million tones of waste have been removed from the pre-strip by giant trucks and other equipment, operated exclusively by staff from surrounding landowner villages including women.

“We’ve got all of our mobile fleet commissioned,” said acting mine manager Chuck Hennessey.

“That’s about 20 85 tonne trucks.

“We’ve got three large excavators.

“We’ve got about 75 other pieces of construction and mining equipment that are currently working the pre-strip, moving generally about 100,000 tonnes a day.

“Construction is continuing on the mill.

“Civil work is well underway.

“We’ve poured most of the concrete for tank footings, some of the larger pads near the mill, and working on completion of the site mill

“The steel and tank work is about to begin.

“Large vehicle workshop and large equipment workshop are about to be completed.

“And we’re currently working on clearing the track for the overland conveyor, which is five and a half kilometers long.

“The camp is almost complete.

“It’s about 95% complete now.

“And the tailings dam walls are just about to be completed.

“We’re expecting commissioning of the mill in May 2009

“Production should be in quarter three of next year.

“Mill capacity will be 12, 0000 tonnes a day.”

Mr Hennessey said there was a general air of optimism all around as construction work neared competition and commended all staff, many from surrounding landowner villages, for their hard work.

“The feeling is pretty good,” he said.

“This is going back to the root of mining in PNG and we’re pretty excited about that.

“This is the largest mining project for the last 20 years since Lihir.

“Everything’s on schedule.

“The staff here is excellent.

“There’s a lot of really good talent here in PNG.

“We’re going to prop that up and make it even better.”