Copper mines world wide are getting depleted. There is one copper mine that is listed on the ASX in Australia that has not produced any copper/gold since there was a civil war in 1989.
The mine is located on the island of Bougainville off the coast off Papua New Guinea. The name of the mine is Panguna. The company that has the rights to exploit the mine are held by Bougainville Copper Limited, listed in Australia.
The mine operated from 1971 to 1989. Mining was stopped in 1989 due to local population militant activity at the mine. Since then the mine has been shut down
Rio Tinto was 53.8% shareholder of the mine. The Government of Papua New Guneae held 36.4%. In 2017 Rio Tinto relinquished it's shareholding in the mine to the Government of Papua New Guinea.
Ultimately Bougainville wants to become independent of PNG. There are discussions ongoing for making Bougainville an independent state. This could lead to a re-opening of the panguna mine.
The order of Magnitude study that was done by Rio Tinto for the reserves is attached & below. It is a very large porphyry deposit, that is easy to mine.
5.3 MT of Copper Resource
19.3 M oz of Gold Resource
Probably one of the largest easy to mine copper/gold deposits in the world
Stock traded on ASX since 1989. Very illiquid. I owned it and sold it a few years back, when Rio Tinto relinquished it's shares.
If the traditional landowners, the Autonomous... (More)
