The Chairman of Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), Peter Taylor, has spoken to Jemima Garrett on ABC Radio Australia about the Bougainville Mining (Transitional Arrangements) Bill.
Mr Taylor used the opportunity to outline the company’s position on the bill, which was passed through parliament on Friday 8 August.
The following is a transcript of the interview:
PT: I can’t say I’m very pleased, it is not the way I would have preferred to progress the possibility of re-opening the mine.
The way we have been proceeding is through negotiation and we have a body (Joint Panguna Negotiation Coordination Committee) that has been set up and it has met at least ten times to discuss the future of the mine and that was proceeding rather well I thought.
It has representatives from all of the main parties including the landowners, the two governments – the National and Autonomous Bougainville Government – plus the company.
This really, to a large extent, pre-empts the outcome of these negotiations because it’s made a unilateral decision about the existing mining lease and exploration licenses.
JG: What sort of dollar figure would you put on the exploration and mining licences that have been stripped away by this legislation?
PT: Well I’ve never done an evaluation of the value of the licenses per se, but essentially it is the right to mine.
Whatever people’s view of the project’s value is, and it definitely has a pretty high value, this essentially puts an end to that value.
You’ve got to reassess whether what is now in the PNG legislation provides any value at all.
What we have been delivered, I am told, is an exploration licence over a part of the former land that we had for mining purposes.
I am not sure that is enough and adequate to meet the needs should the project be given the green light.
JG: Are you considering legal action over this new legislation?
PT: At this stage there is no decision being made to take legal action but the company, BCL, is obviously taking advice on what its options are.
The possibility of legal action I wouldn’t dismiss, although it is not my preferred way of moving forward.
My preferred way of moving forward is to negotiate an outcome, the very process that I mentioned earlier, with all the parties and trying to get a mutually satisfactory result, rather than one of the parties simply changing the ground rules.
JG: Bougainville President, John Momis, says that there was no alternative; that landowners would not allow Bougainville Copper back on the island without the provisions included in this legislation. What’s your reaction to that?
PT: I haven’t heard that said before.
The progress that we were making at the joint meeting, which included landowners, suggested to me that the majority of landowners did want the company back as the operator, that they did want the mine re-opened.
Obviously the details and the terms needed to be worked out, but perhaps President Momis has a better feel for what the landowners, as a whole, want than I do.
Of course when you’re talking about the landowners there are a number of landowner groups, at least six and some others who are on the periphery of the mine site, the road to the mine, the port and other ancillary lease areas.
They don’t speak entirely with a united front, so there might be some that took that view.
I think that detracts from the most important aspect and that is that there should have been, in my view, a continuation of the combined negotiations with all the parties before any decision was made on what the tenements situation should be.
JG: Has Bougainville Copper really lost that much? If you are to go back you will need a social license and with or without this new legislation you are going to have to negotiate new terms of operation with landowners.
PT: That’s true, but under the legislation, as I understand it, when you need a new licence the landowners and other interested parties have certain veto rights.
We already had granted licences which meant that it gave us certainty that if we were to go back the area that we needed had already been marked out.
Under the new arrangements the area that we needed to actually operate this mine, it’s not just the mining lease itself there are other areas, like the port, the road and so on, that are not covered, as I understand it, by this new arrangement.
All of that is up in the air and no major development is going to go ahead, with big money being spent, until such time as there is surety as to the tenure and we simply don’t have that at this stage.
JG: Some groups on Bougainville are still opposed to mining and they say Bougainville Copper still has too much power – what do you say to them?
PT: I never expect everybody in a community to agree on the one course of action, it’s almost inevitable that some people oppose any development, including a mining development.
I believe a majority of people, the landowners and other Bougainvilleans, are amenable to redeveloping the mining operation so that they can have the sort of facilities that were available in the community before the mine ceased operation.
JG: Where do you see things going from here? What are the next steps?
PT: I don’t want to take any pre-emptive steps, I’m still looking at the situation and I haven’t seen the final copy of the act as yet.
I want to get technical and legal advice on what the true implications are and see whether there is some avenue for coming to a mutually acceptable agreement with the relevant parties that will give Bougainville Copper sufficient security to allow it to continue with the projects that are already in the planning stage.
There are community projects that we’re fairly advanced in organising and I wouldn’t like to see those stopped, but I could hardly justify spending my shareholders money on projects when the shareholders’ rights – the company’s rights – in the future are uncertain.
The full audio for the interview can be heard here: http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/asia-pacific/bougainville-copper-seeks-legal-advice-over-latest-panguna-mine-moves/1356142