In Port Moresby today

By MALUM NALU

Pictures of my wanderings around Port Moresby, not today, but on Tuesday, January 15, 2013, as my family and I were moving to up our new place at 8-Mile on the fringes of the city.
No more Hohola for us!

Atlas Street, Hohola 4, that Sir Mekere Morauta forgot about! Hope Michael Malabag can go one step further!

The recreation park at Hohola. Our children and youth deserve better!

Hohola afternoon

The recreation park at Hohola. Our children and youth deserve better!

Wards Road, Hohola

Waigani Drive

Gordon

Roadside market at Gordon

Gordon heading towards 5-Mile

Roadworks from 5-Mile to Erima are taking forever and a day!

Traffic chaos at Erima!

Bird of paradise, Erima

Heading out of the city towards 8-Mile!

Our residental area at 8-Mile

Sunset over Port Moresby as seen from 8-Mile

Heading nback into the city from 8-Mile

Sir John Guise Drive

Moasing fast asleep!

Goodnight babies!

The kids watching cartoons at our new place

My bedroom and study, complete with airconditioning

Leighton handed US$211 million contract to build Esso Highlands headquarters in PNG

Upstream

Australia’s Leighton Holdings has been awarded a contract by ExxonMobil’s Papua New Guinea subsidiary Esso Highlands.

Leighton’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Leighton Contractors, was awarded the A$200 million (US$211.3 million) contract to build Esso’s permanent head office in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
Leighton said construction was expected to start this year and will require a peak workforce of 360, adding 80% of those workers would be sourced from local industry.
Esso Highlands is the operator of the PNG liquefied natural gas project which is based on a two-train processing plant with a capacity of 6.9 milllion tonnes per annum.
Esso holds a 33.2% stake in the project and is partnered by Oil Search (29%), PNG government company Independent Public Business Corporation (16.6%), Santos (13.5%), Nippon Oil (4.7%), PNG landowner company Mineral Resources Development Company (2.8%) and national oil company Petromin (0.2%).

PNG surfing to take part in international project

By MALUM NALU

This is a picture of my good mate, PNG Surfing Association president Andrew Abel, riding a perfect wave off north coast Madang at Tupira where the SAPNG national Surfing Titles were held in 2011. 

He tells me he has been invited to contribute to a ground breaking world first book on sustainable surfing alongside side some big names and legends in the surfing world.
 "I have humbly accepted the invitation on behalf of SAPNG and my members and PNG, as it marks another significant milestone for SAPNG as we mark 26 years since foundation and in making our mark on the world surfing stage as an emerging surfing/ surf tourism nation, as a member of the International Surfing Association world governing body in California, USA," Abel says.
"This invitation complements the international award winning PNG surfing documentary Splinters that is making waves around the world and also the invitation to present a paper at the inaugural Global Surfing Network Conference on the Gold Coast in late February, 2013.
"From humble beginnings, we have come a long way and it feels good to be Papua New Guinean playing our part in contributing in a positive way working alongside some of the legends of the surfing world."

Papua New Guinea prepares for an Asian Century

East Asia Forum

January 16th, 2013

Author: Sean Jacobs, Canberra

In late 2012 Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill delivered a series of speeches that give clues to the country’s growth and political aspirations.

Peter O'Neill

For some time, observers of the country have been kept on a slim diet of academic analysis or fragmented news items for their understanding of the country and the intentions of its political leaders.
As PNG emerges from a politically disruptive past two years, O’Neill has been speaking out abroad. At the Bali Democracy Forum and the Lowy Institute for International Policy, O’Neill clarified his government’s objectives over its five-year term. Two broad priorities can be drawn from his remarks. First, O’Neill wants to increase the proportion of citizens who participate in and benefit from the resource economy. Second, the government wants to upgrade PNG’s national infrastructure and increase productivity.
Both goals depend considerably upon PNG’s economic relationship with Asia. PNG has vast stockpiles of copper, gold and nickel, and there is a steady roster of countries — China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore — increasingly interested in purchasing and investing in its minerals. Supplemented by a lucrative future in Liquefied Natural Gas, the country’s GDP growth is currently at 9 per cent and is expected to almost double by 2016.
While it is easy to be euphoric about PNG’s trade and investment relationships in Asia, they will be geared toward shared interests and not values. PNG is a political outlier in Asia. It has a chaotic Westminster democracy, a political system only India, of Asian nations, is able to understand. This is important to note, especially at the cusp of a resources boom, because it will make it difficult for PNG to create meaningful ‘non-business’ alliances with its Asian trading partners. With that in mind, PNG should consider Lord Palmerston’s well-worn dictum that ‘nations have no permanent friends or allies, they have only permanent interests’ as it becomes more intertwined with Asia.
In order to sustain its resource commitment to Asia, PNG will need to build a decent national infrastructure. In O’Neill’s words: ‘You cannot grow an economy in a first-rate way with third-rate infrastructure’. PNG’s most recent budget commits $12 billion kina (US$5.8 billion), over five years, to upgrading the nation’s highways, roads and ports. To place this fiscal commitment in context, $12 billion kina is equal to PNG’s total national budget in one year.
But PNG’s infrastructure problems are not due to a historical lack of investment and overseas assistance. PNG’s 700km Highlands Highway, for example, which is a relic of PNG’s infrastructure failure, has received billions in funding and overseas aid with very limited results. Still, while rhetoric around large-scale public infrastructure in PNG should be treated with some caution, the renewed political focus on the sector is welcome, particularly in the context of a growing economic imperative from Asia.
On O’Neill’s radar, too, are government measures to improve productivity — an area on which he says that it ‘has never really focused’. PNG is not the only developing state with abundant natural resources, and the government is aware that it will have to supply its buyers more efficiently in the coming years to remain globally competitive. If the government listens more carefully to PNG’s business sector and implements their suggestions, which range in areas from law and order to skilled labour, it can realise productivity gains.
While O’Neill has given some clarity to the intentions of his government until the 2017 national election, a more enduring guide may lie in the production of a well thought-out and measured foreign policy document. Australia recently completed an Asian Century White Paper, and a PNG equivalent is at least worth discussing. PNG has used similar documents in the past — it issued the PNG Foreign Policy White Paper in 1982, for example. But the appetite for such papers seemed to have disappeared as the country lurched from one political crisis to the next.
PNG Vision 2050, published in late 2009, is the PNG government’s latest attempt to bring the nation’s goals together across a range of sectors. The very brief ‘international relations’ section outlined four objectives, including directing aid to national priorities, establishing Trade Commission Offices in relevant countries, increasing bilateral and multilateral relations in international forums, and ensuring the country’s foreign policy reflects the national interest. Should the government wish to pursue an Asian engagement strategy, these objectives may be a fair place to start.
Finally, O’Neill seems aware that PNG cannot live on extracting resources forever. In his Lowy Institute speech, for example, he stated that PNG had become ‘relaxed and comfortable’ and perhaps ‘complacent’ in exporting minerals and forestry. This raises valid questions for potential growth sectors outside of resources such as agriculture and perhaps tourism. These sectors also depend on infrastructure and productivity, so O’Neill’s two priorities could broaden PNG’s economy. While a gap between rhetoric and results is common in PNG politics, many of the country’s citizens, and at least parts of Asia, will be watching PNG’s government more closely than ever.

Sean Jacobs is a former Australian youth volunteer in the Pacific and has worked with all levels of government in Papua New Guinea.

Coffee officers complete training

Eleven technical coffee officers recently completed week-long induction training on how to serve members of the Apo, Kange and Angra (AAK) Coffee Cooperatives based in the highlands provinces.

The 11 technical coffee officers and executives of AAK Cooperatives after completing their induction programme in Goroka recently.-Picture courtesy of CIC

The AAK is a major coffee farmer cooperative group deriving its coffee farmer membership from Chimbu, Jiwaka, Western and Eastern Highlands provinces.

The cooperatives engaged the officers to implement a K500, 000 coffee project successfully sourced from the World Bank-funded coffee component of the Productive Partnership in Agriculture Project (PPAP) late last year. 

Cooperatives coordinator, Brian Kuglame, said the officers were selected from the respective cluster groups of each cooperative from the provinces and were trained to promote coffee quality and sustainable production and marketing.

“Today, the cargo cult perception is growing very big in many communities and these local officers will be there to fight these perceptions and urge the people to work the land to survive,” Kuglame said.

He said one officer would cover more than two districts in each province, including Jiwaka.

Goroka farmers reaps what he sows

By MALUM NALU

Goroka farmer Tom Solepa, who yesterday completed selling 156 bags of kaukau (sweet potatoes) at Gordon Market in Port Moresby for K150 each, has urged the people of Papua New Guinea to go back to the land.

Solepa, a graduate economist who gave up a well-paying government job some years ago to return to the land, will use the more than K7, 000 he had earned in just two days to pay school fees for his two children who are attending Goroka International Primary School.

Tom Soles

He told The National yesterday after selling his kaukau that he was very proud, as an executive of Highlands Farmers and Settlers Association (HFSA), to have brought his kaukau all the way from Goroka via Lae to Port Moresby.

“It takes courage, patience, to bring our kaukau to market,” Solepa said.

“As a person who has been trying to promote farmer issues, this gives me a lot of satisfaction.

“I want to tell our people that money is on the land.

“The returns are very good.”

Solepa, 38, from Meteyufa village outside Goroka in the Asaro Valley, said kaukau was a “winner”.

“I see the kaukau trade as a big business,” he said.

“You bring in kaukau from rural areas to urban areas.

“In Goroka, we do sell the kaukau we grow, however, we feel that we can make better money if we sell in Lae or Port Moresby.

Kaukau being sold at Lae Main Market

“We stopped growing coffee a long time ago.

“It takes us just three months to for kaukau, from growing to harvesting.

“In a year, we make four harvests.

“If we sell 60 bags, we can make up to K11, 000.”

The process, however, can be expensive, as Solepa has had to pay people to tend his gardens, harvest, bag the kaukau and carry them to roadside, road transport to Lae, sea transport to Port Moresby, and several others.

He has also had to pay for his airfares to and from Goroka.

But true to form, Solepa has reaped what he sowed, and what he had earned from this latest kaukau sale will go towards the education of his two children at international school in Goroka.

“My kids are at international school so this money is for their school fees,” he said.

“I pay K5, 000 per child per term, so this money will help me a lot.”

Papua New Guinea curbs foreign travel for ministers

BBC

PM Peter O'Neill has promised to crack down on corruption in Papua New Guinea

The prime minister of Papua New Guinea, Peter O'Neill, has banned ministers and other government officials from travelling overseas for work.

Mr O'Neill said the move was aimed at cutting costs but also ensuring officials stayed focused on their work.
Investigations had shown travel funds had been abused for trips which brought "very little or no benefit", he said.
Any official travelling without his permission could face dismissal.
Mr O'Neill said the government expected to save about K40 million kina (US$19m: £12m) through the travel ban, which was approved by the National Executive Council (NEC) last week and came into effect on 9 January.
He said he and the government had to "stay focused this year, keep our feet on the ground, cut down on unnecessary travels and meetings and conferences that yield little results".
"We have investigated and established that funds budgeted for essential goods and services have been abused to pay for overseas junkets, meetings and conferences that bring very little or no benefit to anyone," he said, adding that productivity was "seriously affected by unnecessary trips".
Officials and government bodies now have to seek the prime minister's personal approval for foreign travel, while permission must also be sought to hold international events within Papua New Guinea.
"Those who breach this NEC decision and directive will face stiff penalties, including suspension or dismissal," the prime minister said.
Mr O'Neill came to power in August last year promising to make the government more transparent and "stamp out corruption wherever it occurs".
Last year, Campaign group Transparency International ranked Papua New Guinea as the 150th most corrupt country in the world, out of 176 surveyed.

PNG in 2013: politics, economics, PNG-Australia relations, and Ross Garnaut

Written by Stephen Howes on January 14 in Development Policy Blog

Download article as PDF

Ross Garnaut

The core areas of focus for the Development Policy Centre are aid effectiveness and PNG and the Pacific. Last week, Robin Davies and I gave our views on key Australian aid issues for 2013. Tomorrow, Tess Newton-Cain will write on the Pacific in 2013. Today, it’s me on PNG.
Politics
Politically, the 2012 elections, whatever else can be said about them, did provide the much-hoped-for circuit-breaker to the political stand-off which had developed. The O’Neill-led Government has massive numbers behind it, and at least two-and-a-half years free of fear of being overthrown: in November Parliament passed a constitutional amendment, extending the grace period (during which it is not possible for the opposition to lodge a motion of no confidence in the government) from 18 to 30 months. The leader of the Opposition, Belden Namah, impressed by supporting that motion, which ensured that it passed unanimously. Still, the Government won’t necessarily have an easy ride. After a quiet second half of 2012, Namah has more recently become vocal, speaking out against proposed government plans to replace the leader of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, and announcing that he will appeal the Manus solution to the PNG courts.

Economic policy
Growth is expected to slow, but only because construction of the LNG project is coming to an end. Medium-term growth prospects remain strong. The new Government has decided to spend big, increasing expenditure by almost 30%. It’s not all together a credible strategy, as the projections which return the budget to balance by 2015 assume real cuts to government salaries. But the bigger issue is whether the big increase in funds will be well spent.
The PNG Government also announced in the budget a review of mining taxation. This is very welcome as there are many suspicions that PNG’s mineral projects are riddled with tax exemptions.
2013 will also be an important year for the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). With the decline in commodity prices, it now seems unlikely that any funds will flow from government tax revenue into the SWF for the forseeable future. But dividends from the LNG Project will go to the SWF. Whereas tax revenues would be saved (in the Stabilization Fund), dividends are to be spent (through the Development Fund), but the legislation to determine how has not yet been seen. That’s a real gap, and a risk: depending on design, the SWF might make things worse than if the dividends were received and spent within the budget, like any other revenue source. Since LNG dividends will start to flow in 2015, the Government has to fix this soon.
The O’Niell Government has been admirably strident and active on corruption. Will we see in 2013 the establishment of an Anti-Corruption Commission, its key election promise? In his speech to the National Press Club, the PNG PM promised introduction of the legislation in this year’s first parliamentary sitting.
Unfortunately privatization remains off the agenda. The O’Neill Government seems no more interested in privatization than the Somare one. This is despite widespread agreement that the privatization by the Mekere Government, now more than a decade ago, of the Bank of the South Pacific was wildly successful. Unfortunately, no-one seems to be putting any pressure on the Government to learn the lessons of success. The ADB, which in 2012 wrote a useful benchmarking study on PNG SOEs, is fixated on reforming SOEs rather than selling them off. Despite admitting that in PNG “SOEs are still considered important extensions of political influence,” the ADB claims that privatization is “not necessary.”
Privatization is necessary, but it’s not going to happen. What might happen is follow-up on the ADB recommendation that IPBC (the trust which owns most of PNG’s SOEs) be reconstituted as a company: the PNG Minister for State-owned Enterprises seems particularly interested in Singapore’s Tamasek Holding Company. If IPBC is corporatized, it is only going to make it easier for the Government to develop new enterprises, and for state involvement in the economy to grow rather than shrink.

PNG and Australia
The relationship seems to be very warm, a point stressed by the PNG Prime Minister during his late-November trip to Australia. Reflecting this perhaps, there were certainly some good points to come out of the PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum held in Moresby in December  including agreement on the text of an Economic Cooperation Treaty with a focus on trade, investment and labour mobility. There is also a welcome promise by Australia to streamline visas, and by PNG to establish by 2015 an Independent Health Procurement Authority to combat entrenched corruption in drug procurement.
But there were some strange silences as well. First of all, no mention  of gender, despite the gender-violence epidemic in PNG, and the Australian Prime Minister’s August 2012 Pacific gender initiative. In a detailed communiqué which goes to such second-order topics of sport and academic conferences, gender, if excluded, becomes an important omission.
Second, the sentence on corruption is all about PNG taking concrete steps. There’s no response to the PNG claim that Australia is its Cayman Islands.
Third, the approach in the Communique to the economic challenges facing PNG can only be called naïve. There’s a ringing endorsement of the budget, with no balancing mention of risks. And there’s a continuation of the obsession with the Sovereign Wealth Fund. Nothing could be further from the truth than the claim that the establishment of the SWF will “ensure that … economic gains …  are translated into tangible outcomes for PNG.” Even a good SWF won’t ensure this, and, as pointed out earlier, the jury is still out on whether the PNG SWF will actually improve fiscal management.
The only area of apparent disagreement appears to be over aid, where the Communique states that the aid program would be “recalibrated to reflect the emerging priorities of the O’Neill Government” but “within the existing priorities.” What this compromise means is far from clear. 
Why has Australia become so positive towards PNG? It’s partly continuation of a stance first adopted by Rudd; partly relief at the restoration of stability; partly attraction to the development vision articulated by PM O’Neill;  and partly no doubt the leverage PNG now has as a result of Manus. The close relationship will likely continue unless Manus comes undone. Australia’s “no advantage” test will require long-term stays in Manus, but the PNG Government has repeatedly called for speedy processing. Tensions might arise over this, or over local grievances, or over the outcome of the Namah high court challenge. 

Ross Garnaut
2012 ended on a nasty note with the banning in November of Ross Garnaut from entry to PNG for a critical remark he made to Rowan Callick of The Australian. The comment related to the Sustainable Development Program (SDP), of which till late last year Garnaut was the Chair.  SDP was created by BHP to manage its share of the Ok Tedi mine in 2001. PM O’Neill has made it clear that he thinks BHP should have no say in the running of SDP. The offending Garnaut quote was: “it’s very tempting for political figures to think of better ways of using it right now rather than putting it into long-term development.” O’Neill justified the resulting ban by saying that “we will not tolerate people of such standing coming in and disrespecting leaders of this country.”
Ross Garnaut has played many roles in PNG since the 1960s, but his main one is now as Chairman of Ok Tedi. I’ve known him for many years, and worked for him twice, so I’m not going to pretend I’m a disinterested observer,  but let me make three  remarks which I think any disinterested observer would have to agree with, but which, strangely, no one seems to have made so far.
First, it is remarkable just how little attention this issue has received given the stakes involved. Not only is Ok Tedi by far PNG’s largest contributor  to Government revenue, and an environmental challenge which needs to be managed with care, but it is an operation in relation to which decisions have to be made about mine-life-extension in the next couple of years.
Second, and more importantly, there is an issue of freedom of speech here. People should be able to criticize freely whichever country they want. Individuals should be no more banned for critical comments from countries they don’t belong to than locked up for criticizing their country of citizenship.
Third, where is Australia in all this? The only public response of the Australian Government has been from Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Richard Marles, quoted as saying that “Papua New Guinea was within its rights to block entry to Professor Garnaut” and that “who PNG says is welcome or not in its own country is obviously a matter for PNG.” Really? Observance of human rights is now entirely a domestic issue for PNG? We insist on democracy in Fiji but not free speech in PNG? Australia has no obligation to support its citizens to undertake lawful business opportunities internationally?
It is hard not to see Manus behind Australia’s lack of protest. The episode is a sad commentary on both governments. Lifting the Garnaut ban would be a good way to start 2013.

Note: It has just been announced that Prof Garnaut has in fact resigned as Ok Tedi Chair because of the travel ban.
Stephen Howes is Director of the Development Policy Centre.

Should deep-sea mining go ahead in Papua New Guinea?

AlertNet

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:28 GMT 

 Source: Content partner // SciDev.Net - Prime Sarmiento

Financial disagreement has halted a controversial deep-sea mining project but deeper issues lie with the environment, Prime Sarmiento reports.

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[MANILA] The fate of a currently halted deep-sea mining project in the Pacific is being watched closely by a number of parties.
Mining companies hope that the project might become the start of an extraordinary bonanza of mineral deposits, but environmentalists are fearful that allowing it to go ahead might lead to the destruction of a still unexplored ecosystem.

SPEED READ

• Many interest groups are keeping an eye on a suspended deep-sea mining project
• The project promises profit and development, though there is a danger of environmental damage
•  But the company says regrowth of minerals means the process is more like farming than mining

Other eyes on the Solwara 1 mining scheme include governments eager for a share of profits, local communities worried about harm to the fisheries on which they depend and scientists keen to learn more about the formation of deposits at rarely plumbed depths and the pros and cons of mining.
The profit seekers won the first round when Canadian firm, Nautilus Minerals, secured a 20-year licence and the backing of Papua New Guinea to mine gold and copper at a depth of 1,600 metres in the Bismarck Sea — the first such deep sea operation in the world.

Rich pickings
Operations were scheduled to begin in 2014, with a target of producing about 80,000 tonnes of copper and more than four tonnes of gold a year.
Company officials estimate that Solwara would bring in more than US$140 million to Papua New Guinea's economy in its first two years of operation and claim that about 70 per cent of the project's staff would come from the country.
Nautilus also says it would use the latest ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicles) technology. ROVs are used by the oil and gas industry, although not at these depths. Rock collected from the seafloor would be pumped to the surface, loaded onto barges and shipped to China for processing.
The costs of using this technology look to be more than offset by a greater yield from the deep-sea ores than land-mined material, says Chris Yeats, who runs the mineral system science programme at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
"For every tonne of ore you mine from the seafloor and process, you get ten times the metal you get from a tonne of ore from the land," he says.

Nautilus plans to use remotely operated underwater vehicles
Credit: Nautilus

Objections from government

But there's a spanner in the works. A few weeks ago Nautilus announced that it had halted construction of its seafloor production systembecause of a dispute with the Papua New Guinea government over financing.
Despite Papua New Guinea's US$80 million pledged in the project, prime minister Peter O'Neill says Nautilus has to clarify a number of issues, including intellectual property rights, before his government can release public funds.
O'Neill took office in August: the original deal with Nautilus was with his predecessor, Michael Somare.
In an interview with Radio Australia, O'Neill also pointed to serious environmental concerns. "They must clear those issues. We are now working together with our environment agencies, ensuring that the concerns of landowners and provincial governments are put to rest before the project can get off the ground," he said.
One of Solwara's critics, Gary Juffa, governor of the country's northern province of Oro, welcomes the suspension.
"I am against the project because it is detrimental to the environment and Papua New Guinea's interests. I took action with others to stop it," he says.
He worries that mining operations might hit fisheries, as well as local communities and their culture, for example by affecting 'shark calling' — a ritual where fishers sing to lure sharks and capture them in handmade snares.

Scientists also cite harm
Juffa sides with critics who claim that Solwara would cause environmental and health impacts, and social harm that would outweigh its projected economic benefits. Critics also argue that, given the insufficient scientific data about the impact of deep-sea mining, it is prudent to carry out more research before resuming exploration and exploitation of seabed resources.

Richard Steiner, a US-based consultant and former marine conservation professor at the University of Alaska, tells SciDev.Net that the deep sea is a poorly understood environment. He wants a global moratorium on all deep-sea mineral extraction, in both territorial waters and the high seas, until there is a "clearer scientific understanding of its risks and impacts".
He adds: "We don't have even a rudimentary understanding of deep-sea ecosystems and how they would be impacted over the long term by mining".
Three years ago, Steiner wrote a report on the project for the Bismarck-Solomon Seas Indigenous Peoples' Council in which he warned that the operation would destroy tens of thousands of vents, which are associated with biological diversity and mineral deposits. [1]
He said the suspended sediment from mining operations and disposal of waste would contaminate the sea and that the project would generate underwater noise that could affect marine animals.
"To justify the destruction of deep-sea hydrothermal vent systems, as the Nautilus project will do, one would need to convince us that this is absolutely necessary for the world and the local economy. It isn't," he tells SciDev.Net. "Gold mining is perhaps the most useless and damaging industrial activity ever invented. And the other minerals are all readily available already in landfills."

Mined chimney vents would regenerate, says minerals expert
Credit: Nautilus

In addition, he says, deep-sea hydrothermal vent systems are some of the "most remarkable, unique biological systems ever discovered. I think there is a chance that unidentified species and genetic [resources] may be lost even with a small-scale mining project".
Another opponent is Helen Rosenbaum, coordinator of the Deep Sea Mining campaign in Australia. She says: "We are completely out of our depth here. We don't know enough about the marine environment to be able to manage the impact of deep-sea mining and understand what we are losing even before we start."

Is sea mining sustainable?
Nautilus points to the environmental impact statement that it had to submit before getting a licence from Papua New Guinea (though this, too, hasrecently been criticised on the basis that it involved poor analysis). [2]

The company says that the Solwara 1 development was prepared by world-class scientists who undertook rigorous studies of the marine environment, and that a review of a report commissioned by the country's department of environment and conservation confirmed that surface waters would not be threatened.
Yeats tells SciDev.Net that there is no evidence to support the proposition that deep-sea mining would be catastrophic.
Properly managed, sea-floor mines can cause less environmental damage than the terrestrial ones, he says, and none of the roads, railways, port facilities, power lines, water pipes and other infrastructure used by traditional mining activity are needed. Most terrestrial mines generate significant amounts of waste rock that cannot be processed economically.
He adds that massive seafloor sulphides — the formations containing the ore — are dynamic environments and it is possible that that ore bodies, once mined, "could grow back".
"In some ways, the process may be more like farming than traditional mining," he says. "If you cut one of the vents, it will definitely grow back … in just a few years or decades. So it will be possible to revisit it for another mining operation."
If that proves true, the problems currently faced by Nautilus may be nothing more than a local difficulty when weighed against the harvest that might be generated by deep-sea mining.

REFERENCES
[1] Steiner, R. Independent review of the environmental impact statement for the proposed Nautilus Minerals Solwara 1 seabed mining project, Papua New Guinea. (2009)
[2] Environmental impact statement: Solwara 1 project. (Nautilus Minerals, 2008)

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr passes on BHP PNG dispute

Greg Earl and Joanna Heath of Australian Financial Review

Australia Foreign Minister  has refused to join the row between Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, and BHP Billiton, saying a travel ban on former Ok Tedi mine chairman Ross Garnaut should be dealt with at the consular level.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr

The federal government is reluctant to be drawn into the dispute because it has hopes that the bilateral relationship will improve under the relatively new O’Neill government.
Mr O’Neill has accused BHP of having a colonial mentality towards PNG by not giving up full control over the fund that has majority ownership of the Ok Tedi copper mine and has imposed a travel ban on Professor Garnaut due to his critical comments on the issue.
Australian National University development expert Stephen Howes said on Tuesday it was ironic that the government had washed its hands of the dispute when a new economic co-operation treaty had been settled between the two countries only last December, which should have provided for free business travel.
Observers are surprised Mr O’Neill has attacked BHP so strongly because he is publicly committed to resources development and some speculate about personality tensions between Mr O’Neill and Professor Garnaut. Others say the central government is under pressure from local opponents of the mine to have more control over the fund before it pushes ahead with extending the mine due to its important role in funding the country’s budget.
BHP has already ceded control over appointing directors to the PNG Sustainable Development Program fund, which majority owns the mine, but Mr O’Neill has not explained clearly how he wants the fund to run now it is more independent. Analysts said he might feel that the changes to how directors are appointed might not result in fast enough board change to the institution, which spends 30 per cent of its earnings and places the rest in a long term savings fund.
Lowy Institute for International Policy analyst Jenny Hayward-Jones said the fund had been a good way for BHP to deal with the consequences of mining pollution a decade ago and had contributed to PNG development. But she said there could be localised grievances about how money was spent that was fuelling Mr O’Neill’s criticism. “I don’t think this reflects any change in approach to mining companies and I don’t think the government is seeking a conflict with BHP,” she said.
Professor Howes, who has conducted a review of the fund, said it had helped BHP exit the Ok Tedi mine but had also benefited PNG more than expected due to the recent higher copper price.
Australia’s need for a refugee processing center on PNG’s Manus Island means this is particularly sensitive time for the government to enter a commercial dispute in PNG.
Senator Carr said: “Our high commissioner in Port Moresby has engaged with the government of PNG about this, making representations on Mr Garnaut’s behalf. I think that is best handled at that level.”

BHP’s claims, false and misleading, says O’Neill

The National

 

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has branded as false and misleading claims by BHP Billiton in the Australian Financial Review yesterday.
O’Neill said BHP Billiton needed to get over its “colonial era” mentality and appreciate that Papua New Guinea was an independent nation, and negotiate with Papua New Guinea in a mature and reasonable way as numerous other Australian resource companies did.
“Instead of seeking the intervention and assistance of the Australian government, the company should negotiate with my government, and me, as prime minister,” O’Neill said.
“The article claims that I had blocked the granting or extension of exploration licences because it would not agree with my proposals regarding the determination of the board of PNG Sustainable Development Program.
“This is totally and utterly false. It is just dishonest.
“BHP Billiton surrendered the licences entirely on its own accord. It did so when it made a decision early last year not to invest in Papua New Guinea – after I had personally invited the company to meet with senior cabinet ministers, including myself, and to consider investing in PNG.
“We did everything possible to encourage the company, just as we encourage and assist other major investors all the time.
“They decided not to take up the offer. That occurred before the mid-year elections, and eight or nine months before I made my comments on Prof Ross Garnaut,” he said.
O’Neill said the central issue was not Garnaut and his inaccurate comments on why he wanted the issues surrounding the way the board of PNGSDP was appointed to be changed.
“The central issue is this: 11 years ago, BHP Billiton was done an enormous favour by the then PNG government and allowed to exit ownership of the Ok Tedi Mine without accepting any financial or moral responsibility for the enormous environmental and social damage that occurred in the 20 years it operated the mine,” he said.
“Surely, 11 years on, there can be no reasonable case made out to justify BHP Billiton continuing to exercise effective control over the PNGSDP and the Ok Tedi mine.
“The claim by BHP Billiton and by Garnaut that I want the PNG government to get its hands on the funds of the PNGSDP is personally offensive.
“All I have sought, and will continue to seek, is negotiations that can lead to BHP Billiton ending a role that it is not justified to continue to play.
“My position is supported by my government, and I believe by the national parliament and the people of the Fly River province,” he said.
O’Neill said BHP Billiton should reflect on the appalling environmental damage that occurred during its management of the Ok Tedi mine, and the terrible consequences for the people of the Fly River area – consequences which continue to be felt today.
“The PNG government of the day decided just over a decade ago to legislate to allow BHP Billiton to walk away from any responsibility for the damage that was caused during its management of the mine.”
O’Neill said he rejected the claims in the article that his position was damaging the PNG investment climate.
“This is total nonsense. Last month I addressed 1,400 mining, oil and gas leaders, and financiers and analysts in Sydney at the annual PNG Mining and Petroleum Conference.
“At that conference, there was strong confidence expressed about PNG as a country in which to invest, and in the range of policies we have in place.”