Coal mining

AN article in the business section of The National yesterday was about an Australian company given the green light to extract coal.
It went on to say that the Australian firm Mayur Resources Ltd has been given an environmental permit by the Conservation and Environmental Protection Authority to extract bulk coal from Gulf for sampling.
After the bulk sampling the company would carry out the commercial grade shipment of this resource.
This arrangement puzzles me.
The company has already evaluated the quality of coal as other parts of the extract indicated.
It mentions low situ ash content as well as the low sulphur content in the coal deposits, meaning that testing has been done.
The Mayur Resources firm must reveal to us the type of sample testing they have to go through that requires tonnes of extracts of sand and coal.
I was at home in Gulf, particularly at Muro, in April-May this year for the gas pipeline benefit exercise.
At one of the villages, I came across a camp set up by Mayur Resources Ltd.
There were three expatriates and a number of PNG nationals there.
At my own village further inland they had taken coal samples prior to my arrival.
In villages where iron sand deposits exist in abundance, the workers of this company had filled up about 200 bags of 50 kilograms each of iron sand extracts and taken them away for samples for testing. Someone needs to explain to us if samples of iron mineral have to be collected in hundreds of 50-kilogram bags for testing.
Our people were not made aware of their arrival, either by the company itself, the Gulf Provincial Government or the national Government Department that was responsible for allowing them into this country.
I would like to call on like-minded people in Gulf who come from these resource areas to stand up together and ask for better clarification of the activities of Mayur Resources Limited.

Terry Haru