In recent years, the government of Papua New Guinea has issued a series of policies to attract mining investors to encourage development. However, if there is attraction, there is risk. However, mining investors still choose to invest when they know that the risk is high. How attractive are the minerals in Papua New Guinea?
I. Overview of mineral resources in Papua New Guinea
The full name of Papua New Guinea is the independent country of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is located south of the equator and southwest of the South Pacific. It is the second largest country in the South Pacific after Australia.
Papua New Guinea is rich in mineral resources and has great development potential, especially gold and copper resources, which occupy a certain position in the world. Besides gold and copper, other major minerals include silver, nickel, diamonds, oil, natural gas, molybdenum, lead and zinc.
gold mine
The gold deposits in Papua New Guinea are mainly located in the eastern part of Hiran Island, New Ireland Island and Solomon Islands, and are intermittently distributed along the NW-trending regional tectonic line. There are about 155 gold deposits in Papua New Guinea, which are distributed on volcanic islands. The proven gold reserves in some well-known mining areas are about10.5 million tons, of which 700 tons are proved. More than 90% of Papua New Guinea's gold production comes from the associated gold of porphyry copper mines, and there are also low-temperature hydrothermal gold mines. The main gold mines are Panguna, Oktedi, Misima, Wawu, Pogra, Lihir and Frida.
copper
Papua New Guinea is rich in copper resources. According to the investigation report of the Commercial Office of the Embassy of China in Papua New Guinea in 2008, the country's proven copper reserves reached 20 million tons, which means that Papua New Guinea has an average of 43 tons of copper reserves per square kilometer. Copper resources are mainly concentrated in Panguna in bougainville island, alcott Di in Fubilan Mountain in western province (alcott Di copper mine is the eighth largest copper mine in the world), Frida in the south of Sepik River and Jandera in Bismarck Mountain, all of which are Cenozoic porphyry-skarn copper-gold deposits. Among them, the copper mine in the central mountainous area of bougainville island is estimated to be 654.38 billion tons, which is one of the huge copper mine areas in the world.
Papua New Guinea is also one of the world's important copper producers, with an annual output of about 200,000 tons, which has shown a downward trend in recent two years. In 2007, the output1690,000 tons decreased by 654.38+02% compared with the previous year, accounting for about 654.38+0. 1% of the world's total output, ranking fourth in the Asia-Pacific region.
silver
Silver mines are mostly associated with gold mines, mainly distributed in western provinces, Bougainville provinces, Nga provinces and central provinces. The annual output of silver in Papua New Guinea is about 50 tons. In 2007, the output was about 5,654.38+0.3 million tons, mainly produced in alcott Di copper, gold and silver mines. In 2007, the silver production capacity was 46 tons. Others are mainly produced in Porgera mine in Nga province, which has a silver production capacity of 4 tons in 2007. Silver mine products are mainly used for export. In 2007, silver was exported at 6 1 ton.
Nickel and cobalt
Nickel and cobalt resources in Papua New Guinea are mainly concentrated in Madang province in the southeast of the island, among which Lamu nickel-cobalt deposit is a world-class laterite nickel deposit, with known resources of about 1444300 tons of nickel and about 14300 tons of cobalt.
Oil and gas
According to the information released by the Ministry of Petroleum of Papua New Guinea, the crude oil reserves of Papua New Guinea are 576 million barrels; The proven natural gas reserves are (1P )5.7 trillion cubic feet. There are five oil-bearing basins in Papua New Guinea, namely, Papua Basin, North New Guinea Basin, New Ireland Basin, Bougainville Basin and Cape vogel Basin, among which Papua Basin is the largest and the main distribution area of oil and natural gas in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is rich in natural gas resources, but the current development level is low. In order to develop its natural gas resources on a large scale, Papua New Guinea is currently planning to introduce international mining capital to build LNG projects.
Second, if you want to engage in mining in Papua New Guinea, you need to be aware of the risks.
land
Most of the land in Papua New Guinea is privately owned, and 97% of the land in the country is occupied by various tribes, who enjoy "traditional land rights". However, the land boundary between Papua New Guinea is unclear, and no one cares when it is idle. Once it is developed, many landowners will stand up and demand their rights, and the government departments can't confirm who are the real landowners, which brings great uncertainty to the negotiation, cooperation and share distribution between developers and landowners.
Industry leaders gather.
In addition to local enterprises, mining enterprises in Australia, South Korea, South Africa and other countries have all laid out Papua New Guinea, and the market competition is fierce, which brings certain risks.
Weak infrastructure
Affected by the terrain, Papua New Guinea is mostly mountainous and the land transportation is underdeveloped. Papua New Guinea has a weak power supply and a large power gap.
To sum up, the development potential of Papua New Guinea's mineral resources is huge, and it will also bring rich returns, but at the same time, it is necessary to make clear the risks that need to be paid attention to and minimize the losses.