Posts Tagged ‘Mining’
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Rowan Callick, 4/2/10
Fighting has claimed 16 lives over the past week at villages near both ends of a planned 600km pipeline down which will flow Papua New Guinea’s great new economic hope, its $16.5 billion gas project. As a result, project leader Exxon/Mobil has suspended road building work by Queensland-based Curtain Brothers for the liquefaction plant near Port Moresby. A second, $8bn project was announced recently by InterOil, which is based in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, and is largely operated from Cairns. The first of the latest killings came in an early morning raid by villagers from Erave district in Southern Highlands, against an enemy clan that lives in an area without road access. The attackers used high-powered guns to kill 11 people.
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Tags: Mining, PNG, Trade
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Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Rowan Callick, 4/2/10
Fighting has claimed 16 lives over the past week at villages near both ends of a planned 600km pipeline down which will flow Papua New Guinea’s great new economic hope, its $16.5 billion gas project. As a result, project leader Exxon/Mobil has suspended road building work by Queensland-based Curtain Brothers for the liquefaction plant near Port Moresby. A second, $8bn project was announced recently by InterOil, which is based in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada, and is largely operated from Cairns. The first of the latest killings came in an early morning raid by villagers from Erave district in Southern Highlands, against an enemy clan that lives in an area without road access. The attackers used high-powered guns to kill 11 people.
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Tags: Mining, PNG, Trade
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Thursday, October 1st, 2009
1/10/09
Talk about a cry for help. French farmers have to make do with blockading the Champs Elysees or whatever. But our plucky paysannes can now send their dust to speak for them. And speak it does, in great billowing gobbets. Not just to Macquarie Street, either. That dust gets everywhere, infiltrating every crook and nanny, cataracting every sparkling view – as though Sydney were some trifling Adelaide or Kalgoorlie. The country flexes its muscle, and its message is this: dust can steal Sydney’s éclat, its very Sydney-ness. And while one dust storm a century might be dismissed as bad luck, two in a week starts to look like carelessness. I happened to be visiting Pittwater on The Day of the Dust. Gale or no gale, the brownout was complete, and it was hard not to see a certain poetic justice in this forcible reminder, for the splashy seaside classes, that much of the country hasn’t seen water for months, even years.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Mining, Nuclear
Posted in Arms, Australia, Environment, Human Rights | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Moira Rayner; 22/9/09
Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer. She is a former Equal Opportunity and HREOC Commissioner. She is principal of Moira Rayner and Associates.
A mining registrar in Western Australia has a hard decision to make. The Martu Idja Banjima Native Title claimants — the Martidja Manyjima people of the Pilbara — want him to hear their challenge to BHP Billiton’s claim for more mining leases on 200 square kilometres of their traditional land. BHP Billiton doesn’t. The Martidja Manyjima people have decided the damage to their responsibilities to the land of water degradation and destruction of sacred sites by the owners of the nearby massive Hope Downs mine is just too great. They don’t want money, they want to limit the endless expansion of mining on their country.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Human Rights, Mining
Posted in Aboriginal, Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, September 21st, 2009
Michael Owen; 21/9/09
The Great Artesian Basin – one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the world — is in danger of going the same way as the ailing Murray-Darling Basin because of reckless corporate abuse, aided by political ignorance, says South Australian senator Nick Xenophon. The independent senator will tell a groundwater conference in Adelaide today that greed will drive companies, such as mining giant BHP Billiton, and governments, such as Mike Rann’s Labor administration, to “outpace research, and we will do to groundwater what we have done to our rivers”. Senator Xenophon will open the Australian Groundwater School, the nation’s peak groundwater training program, endorsed by the South Australian, West Australian and Queensland governments. He will highlight BHP Billiton’s proposal to turn Olympic Dam, in far-north South Australia, into the world’s largest open-cut mine as “one of the most outrageous examples of corporate abuse of water resources anywhere”. “The amount of groundwater this mine currently extracts is staggering. It sucks 37 million litres of water from the Great Artesian Basin every day,” Senator Xenophon will tell the gathering of water management professionals. “BHP Billiton can increase this to 42 million litres a day. And the price BHP Billiton will pay for all this water? Nothing … not a cent.”
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Mining, Trade
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Environment, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Amanda O’Brien; 14/9/09
The oil leaking from a stricken rig off Western Australia has emerged as the nation’s third-biggest spill after the company responsible for the disaster admitted up to 400 barrels a day had flowed into the sea for more than three weeks. PTTEP Australasia, which previously declined to estimate the size of the spill from its Montara well head, 250km off the coast, also confirmed the leak would continue for at least a further three to four weeks. A spokesman yesterday said the 400 barrels were an estimate and it might be fewer, but the figure puts the amount of oil lost so far at about 1215 tonnes, and it could double by next month. Even if it stopped now, the PTTEP spill would be Australia’s biggest for almost 20 years, based on data from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Mining
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Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
Michael Sainsbury; 19/8/09
In Asia-fuelled, decades-long windfall for Australia’s natural gas sector looks assured with up to $100 billion of fresh investment over 12 to 18 months expected across a range of projects after China promised last night to buy $50bn worth of natural gas from the proposed North West Shelf Gorgon development. The Gorgon venture promises to be Australia’s biggest resources project, pumping $40bn into the federal government’s tax coffers over the next 20 to 30 years. The deal is the latest sign that while diplomatic relations between Australia and China have ebbed to a decade low, Beijing’s appetite for Australia’s resources remains undiminished, coming only a day after Fortescue Metals Group said China’s state-owned banks would back its rapid expansion with $US6bn ($7.3bn) in loans. This is the latest and biggest deal in the unprecedented escalation of gas projects which take in the $50bn Gorgon project and several deep-sea gas field developments by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, as well as surging interest in coal-seam gas deposits, mainly in Queensland.
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, China, Mining, Trade
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Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Nehemiah Isaac; 28/7/09
Interoil Corporation has denied it is pushing for the National Government to sign a “lucrative” 50-year project agreement for its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. Government insiders said yesterday this was one of several “unprecedented” concessions the project operator was seeking for the $US4 billion Liquid Niugini Gas Limited (LNGL) venture. Other concessions include a 10-year tax holiday and no additional benefits tax (APT) to apply to the project. The LNGL project agreement is being deliberated on by the Ministerial Economic Committee and is expected to be submitted to Cabinet soon. If approved, it will be Papua New Guinea’s second LNG venture, the first being the $US13 billion PNG LNG project. InterOil’s senior public affairs manager Susuve Laumaea said yesterday the LNGL consortium was seeking the same concessions and tax regime as the ExxonMobil-led project.
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Tags: Mining, PNG, Trade
Posted in Aid / Trade, Environment, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua | No Comments »
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Jacob Pok Paso; 16/7/09
A tussle for control of a children’s fund in Porgera has left the future of children whose school fees are paid from this fund in grave danger. The children’s school fees have not been paid since 2007. The Porgera SML Children’s Investment Trust Fund, set up for children of the special mining lease area, pays fees for children in various schools, including the Porgera International School. Teachers at the international school have gone without pay for several fortnights, and principal Peter Bridger said it had become a “humanitarian” problem because they could no longer put food on the table for their families.
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Tags: Education, Mining, PNG
Posted in Aid / Trade, Environment, Health & Children, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
Tom Allard; 12/7/09
A Melbourne man has been shot dead near the giant Freeport mine in Indonesia’s Papua province in an apparent sniper attack. Drew Nicholas Grant, 29, was shot in the back of the neck by a gunman hiding in nearby hills as he travelled in the back seat of a car with four others yesterday, said Inspector-General Nanan Sukarna of Indonesian police. He was heading to an early morning round of golf.
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Tags: Human Rights, Indonesia, Mining, West Papua
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Environment, Human Rights, Indonesia, Terrorism | No Comments »
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Rowan Callick, 4/6/09
Can billions of dollars of gas refloat Papua New Guinea? The country’s hopes since independence have focused on one huge mine or energy project after another, each getting progressively bigger. Each has been hailed by the country’s government as the answer to PNG’s grim list of problems, which persist through boom and bust cycles alike. Abel Simon, a researcher at the National Research Institute, says: “PNG is known as an island of gold floating in a sea of oil. However, the lifestyle of the people and their access to basic goods and services tell a different story.” In the past few years, thanks substantially to high commodity prices, there has been something of a boom, on paper at least. Economic growth reached 6.5 per cent in 2007 and 7 per cent last year, and despite the global downturn PNG is sustaining growth this year too. But living standards have kept sinking, regardless. PNG, with its rapidly growing population of 6.2 million, stands 149th of 177 countries in the UN human development index, well below its Pacific Island peers.
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Tags: Human Rights, Mining, PNG, Trade
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Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Barnabas Orere Ponderos; 3/7/09
The Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) Ltd has reiterated that its 135km slurry pipeline did not pass “just metres” above waterways and that all river crossings have proper bridges. The nickel miner was reacting to concerns raised by the country’s leading ecologist, Dr Simon Saulei, last month that the duct was built just a metre above waterways and in danger of being damaged by flood. The Fortune 500 company then summoned its project manager, Dr George Shou of Brass Engineering International (BEI) of California, USA, to respond to Dr Saulei’s observation. Dr Shou said where the pipeline reaches a waterway, it would be tunnelled 1.8m under the river bed. He noted that only six sections had bridges built above the waterway.
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Tags: Environment, Mining, PNG
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Thursday, June 18th, 2009
18/6/09; (3 Items)
In the final part of its series on Corporations on Trial, People & Power’s Juliana Ruhfus visits East Java where Scientists and Indonesian activists allege a devastating volcanic eruption three years ago is a man-made disaster but lawyers are facing an uphill battle to gain compensation for the victims. Walking across the hardened mud, Sodikun points out where a mosque and a nearby kindergarten once stood. “This was the road to the kindergarten,” he says. “It was the main road, it was seven metres wide.” The area is now encased in at least 10m of mud and Sodikun is among 40,000 Indonesians rendered homeless after Volcano Lusi erupted on May 29 2006 disgorging a current of sludge that engulfed seven square kilometers of land, encompassing twelve villages near the town of Porong in East Java. The volcano is still active, pumping out enough mud daily to fill 50 Olympic swimming pools, and the eruption provoked a controversy that has involved lawyers, scientists and the Indonesian government. Just 150m away from the volcano an Indonesian mining company called Lapindo Brantas was drilling for gas and, according to many experts, this leads to only one conclusion.
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Tags: Environment, Human Rights, Indonesia, Mining, Trade
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Environment, Health & Children, Human Rights, Indonesia | No Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
11/6/09
The Government of Papua New Guinea has defended a police crackdown in a village at the site of a lucrative, foreign-owned mine. Human rights groups have raised concerns that villagers in the Porgera Valley were killed and their homes razed by police or security officers earlier this year. But the Government says police were brought in to stop thefts from the mine, saying there has been a history of trouble in the area. PNG Foreign Minister Sam Abal says no homes were razed and police only dealt with issues of theft. “A month of warning was given and police were in presence, within the mine area for about a month or so and then later on they took action to get rid of the people who, according to police intelligence, were involved in the stealing of the gold mine there,” he said.
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Tags: Human Rights, Mining, PNG, Trade
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Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
Poreni Umau; 9/6/09
Landowners of block one at the Kurumbukari (KBK) nickel mine site in the Usino/Bundi district in Madang Province took out a restraining order last Friday against developer, Madang Construction Company to refrain from any operations until landowner issues were sorted out. Chairman of the Guyeibi Nogoi Yowo Clan Joe Koroma, claimants of block one at Kurumbukari named three defendants in the court order as Highlands Pacific Limited, Mineral Resources Authority and the developer, Madang Construction Company (MCC). The landowners lawyer, Tiffany Nonggorr from Nonggorr Lawyers, said the landowners at KBK had filed an application in the National Court to restrain the developer and the other two parties named from further work at Kurumbakari until all landowner issues were determined.
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Tags: Human Rights, Mining, PNG
Posted in Aid / Trade, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua | No Comments »
Friday, May 29th, 2009
Greg Roberts; 29/5/09
Activists are threatening to burn all Asian shops as racial tensions escalate across Papua New Guinea. The warning came as Malaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau accused the media in PNG of fuelling anti-Asian sentiment, and the Malaysian and Chinese consulates in Port Moresby issued safety warnings to their nationals. Four people have been killed since rioting began this month with a fight between Chinese and PNG workers at the Ramu nickel refinery, which is owned by Chinese company Metallurgical Construction Corporation. Rioting and looting have spread to Port Moresby and major provincial centres, with Asian-owned stores the main target.
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Tags: China, Environment, Malaysia, Mining, PNG
Posted in Aid / Trade, Asia, Human Rights, PNG / West Papua | No Comments »
