Morobe to revisit agreement

By GLORIA BAUAI
THE Morobe government will re-visit the 2005 memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the Hidden Valley mine with developer Harmony Gold Mining and stakeholders, says Governor Luther Wenge.
Wenge said the first agreement in 2005 had resolved to a review after three years of production at the Hidden Valley mine.
“Many things stipulated in the agreement then have not been implemented,” he said.
“The last two governments failed to pursue this and to see that the developer complied with the agreement.
“I will start dialogue with the landowners, the Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) and Harmony so that the developer can comply where they have failed to,” Wenge said.
The open-pit gold and silver mine in Morobe’s Bulolo district started off as a joint venture of Newcrest Mining’s subsidiary Newcrest Niugini and South African miner Harmony Gold.
In 2016, Harmony bought Newcrest Niugini’s 50 per cent stake in the join venture to assume full ownership of the mine situated in the Wau area.
In June 2018, the developer announced reaching commercial levels of production.
It was also in 2018 (on June 25), Harmony and Newcrest as the Wafi-Golpu Joint Venture (WGJV) submitted an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Wafi-Golpu Project to the Conservation and Environment Protection Agency (Cepa).
Governor Wenge said he was backing next month’s signing of Wafi-Golpu’s Special Mining Lease (SML).
“Wafi-Golpu is a priority now but Harmony is very much aware that we will be revisiting the Hidden Valley agreement,” he said.