Overview -

Keywords   Papua New Guinea   gold   open pit   underground

The Porgera Mine is located in the Porgera Valley, 600 kilometres northwest of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The area is mountainous and isolated. The mine has more than 2300 employees, 91% of them PNG citizens.

Alluvial gold was first reported at Porgera in 1938. Porgera currently has both an open pit and an underground mine, operated by Barrick.

Ownership Summary  Name: Barrick Gold Corp    Interest: 75%    Note: public company  Name: Emperor Mines Ltd.    Interest: 20%    Note: public company  Name: Mineral Resources Enga    Interest: 5%    Note: government Reference: 27 Apr 2006

The mine is operated by Barrick and is a joint venture between Barrick (75%), Emperor Mines (20%) and Mineral Resources Enga (5%).

From 1990 to 1997, Porgera was an underground operation, with open-pit mining becoming increasingly important from 1993 onwards. Since 2001, the mine has been going through a transition as Stage 3 open-pit ore became depleted, Stage 4 in the open pit opened, the development of the Stage 5 open pit was approved, and underground mining recommenced.