Wafi-Golpu to get mining lease in Sept

By JIMMY KALEBE
SPECIAL mining lease (SML) for the Wafi-Golpu mining project in Morobe will be given by the second week of Sept, according to Mineral Resource Authority (MRA) managing director Jerry Garry.
While announcing that in Lae last Thursday during the Wafi-Golpu mining project updates and special mining permitting process meeting, Garry stressed on lessons learnt from past experiences in the development of the sector.
“If the way we have gone through to develop such projects in the past is not right then we should learn from that and change the way we do it now to see improvements,” he said.
Garry said priority should be given to resource owners.
He said the Waffi-Golpi project was one of the biggest in the world and proper consultations have to be conducted in the presence of resource owners.
Garry said the Wafi-Golpu project would require around US$2.85 billion (K9.6 million) to actually get the project off the ground.
Wafi-Golpu project is ranked number one globally in terms of deposits of high grade copper and gold, he said.
“Wafi-Golpu takes almost 50 years to be developed after it was first discovered in 1970 while Frieda River project was discovered in 1967 but yet to be developed,” he said.
MRA has already identified all landowners in the SML area and in 2019 it was established that those in the pipeline corridor were not identified.
Garry said MRA had been taken to task on that and they were nearing completion of the identification of landowners along the pipeline area.
“The Department of Commerce and Industry is organising landowners to come up with their own company to take part during the construction phase.”