Company fixes road, says disruptions not affecting output

THE K92 Mining Ltd in Eastern Highlands has begun the maintenance and upgrading of the road that disrupted mining operations last week.
K92 chief executive and director John Lewins said even though the access road was far from the mine in Kainantu, it would carry out its upgrading.
K92 is the operator of Kainantu gold mine.
“It is not used by the mine,” he said. “However, K92 had already commenced work on its maintenance and upgrading (in) supporting the local community.”
Last week, a group of people from Bilimoian blocked the road from the process plant to the Kainantu gold mine, demanding that the access road to their villages be upgraded.
The incident forced mining operations to be suspended for 48 hours.
The provincial government has also committed funds to the road upgrading.
“High rainfall forced the work to be temporarily suspended and assurances were provided that work would recommence as soon as the weather improved,” he said.
“But despite the assurances, the youths refused to leave the road.
“Police who had been monitoring the situation arrested many of the demonstrators.
“One was injured and required hospital treatment.”
Lewins said the company suspended operations and removed most of the workers from site to defuse the situation,
“Operations are now returning to normal and at this point, the company does not believe the incident will have any material effect on production for the quarter,” he said.
Lewins said the focus now was on completing the outstanding review of the existing memorandum of agreement.
“The (agreement) underpins the relationship between the company, the community and the Government and sets out commitments from the various parties.”