Previous Story
Path cleared for BHP’s departure from Ok Tedi
|
Posted on Feb 26 2001
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PINA Nius) — Rothschilds merchant bank had prepared a “preferred withdrawal option” for BHP’s departure from its environmentally-troubled Ok Tedi copper mine in far western Papua New Guinea, it was announced.
In announcing the move, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta said Rothschilds was the independent mediator agreed to by BHP and the PNG government for BHP’s exit from the 20-year-old mine.
Ok Tedi is at Tabubil, Western Province, near the West Papua border.
When Ok Tedi was opened in 1981, it was hailed as one of the world’s most environmentally sound projects.
That boast about the then AUS$ 1 billion (US$ 524,509,000) project soon soured, with the Fly River – PNG’s biggest — polluted by escaped tailings and chemicals, subsistence farmland poisoned and — late last year — a multi-million-dollar action for damages from local landowners in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
In July last year, BHP chief executive Paul Anderson visited Port Moresby to tell the PNG government BHP wanted out of Ok Tedi this year — 10 years before its projected mine life of 30 years.
It is understood BHP’s exit plans include on-going provision for an environmental cleanup and infrastructure safeguards into the future for the viability of the “boom” town of Tabubil — a mountainside jungle clearing in 1981, and now a thriving town of 12,000 people almost totally dependent on the mine.
Sir Mekere said the National Executive Council (cabinet) had endorsed further negotiations on BHP’s withdrawal from Ok Tedi.
“The first step will be to seek independent legal and technical advice in order to assess the economics of the project,” he said.
“It is important that the state carries out an independent study to assess the environmental, economic, social and legal aspects of Ok Tedi to enable us to negotiate an acceptable outcome.”
The study will also cover proposals from Rothschilds, which has developed “a preferred withdrawal option, which requires further negotiation,” he said.
“Any withdrawal must be acceptable to all parties: the state, the companies and the people of Papua New Guinea, the Western Province and the Fly River and mine areas.
