The Bougainville Copper Project

15 January 2017

Longyear at Bougainville

Sadly, unreliable Eastmancolor was used for printing this copy of the original film and the print has faded badly with loss of the reds and blue/greens making it almost monochrome now.

Drilling for copper on Bougainville Island in 1964 using the revolutionary new Longyear Triple Tube Wireline Core Barrel specially developed to properly assess the quality of the very broken copper orebody in the highlands of this mountainous and remote island. Shows spectacular aerial views of this beautiful, rugged island and the huge success of the Longyear Triple Tube Core Barrel right from its first use drilling deep into the broken orebody! For the first time, it enabled the high copper content of the very rich orebody to be determined and a decision made on going ahead with develoment of the hugely valuable copper mine in this very difficult and politically unsettled location.

The tribal conflict of the Bougainville Revolution brought operations to a close shortly after this film was made and the orebody is today one of the world's richest unmined copper deposits.

13 January 2017

What the resource curse is doing to Bougainville

The rusted air vent is deafening and a whoosh echoes around the pit. Copper-polluted water sits in a pool nearby and trees are starting to take over the graded hillside. Rocky, uneven ground is where locals pan for gold, hoping to find a few grams to make some money for families living in nearby villages. Seven kilometres wide at its broadest point, the Rio Tinto-controlled Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea hasn’t been in operation for nearly 25 years, yet still dominates the local landscape.

Dozens of massive trucks lie inoperable. Oil drips from their engines and runs downstream. A loud, machine-like sound is heard in the pit. The vent is sucking air directly into a pipe that takes water outside the mine itself. It is this device that allows the mine not to fill up completely with water when it rains constantly during the rainy season. It has been making this booming sound 24 hours a day for the past two decades.

The island’s brutal war from 1989 to 1997 caused the death of many thousands, maimed countless others and involved Australia arming, training and funding Port Moresby to oppose the rebellion. Former PNG leader Michael Somare accuses Rio Tinto of violently suppressing rebels opposed to the mine during the “crisis”.

Bougainvilleans may have won the war but the peace has left years of inertia, and a province desperately in need of rehabilitation.

The town closest to Panguna mine, Awara, feels stuck in time, old buildings are devoured by lush jungle, Shell and Mobil service stations decay on the side of the road. The locals are used to the poor infrastructure and housing and there are few active services for the dwindling population.

“The mine was never really closed,” says Josephine, manager of the Arawa Women’s Training Centre. “Workers and the company just fled.”

Read the rest of the story here.

John Hewitt emailed from the U.K.:

Hi Peter

I've recently been watching a Sky Discovery programme called "The Legend of Croc Gold" - see here -, which covers the exploits of a group of Alaskan gold miners who have been dredging the Queens River bed for alluvial gold. If you have seen it, you will have seen the difficulties they encountered, including large crocs lurking about the riverbanks.

They were using a 6"dredge, with a diver in a croc proof cage, sucking up the riverbed and sluicing it over a set of riffles. They did find gold, some quite large nuggets, or pickers as they called them, because they could pick them out with their fingers.

They were aiming to dredge an ounce an hour, but only averaged about 0.7ounce/hour, but they were intending to go back again to set up a bigger operation. The Queens River is north east of Loloho, and the gold deposits are not that far from Mt Bagana, which is no doubt where the gold originated.

There were also a few clips of Arawa as it is now, with odd clips showing the war.

Glad to see the blog is still going. I'm a member of a Facebook Group called Opencast and Quarrying, and have posted a few of my photos, and extracts from old copies of "the Concentrator" which are always well received.

Do you mind if I post some extracts from the blog? I'm sure they will be appreciated, and as the mining industry is a brotherhood, there must be other ex BCPL employees reading the Facebook page, so there may be some more contributors.

Hope to hear from you soon
Kind regards
John Hewitt
Maintenance Controller, Crushing, 1973/74
Now living near Sheffield, England
email jhewitt19[AT]hotmail.com

3 January 2017

Good morning, Bougainville

2 January 2017

Blood and Treasure

1 January 2017

For Tomorrow 1966

31 December 2016

A British Movietone clip

23 December 2016

Des Hudson emailed from Fairfield

(that's Fairfield, Connecticut, not Fairfield, Sydney)

He emailed these photos:

In Bechtel's Loloho office filling in time between tea breaks

Driving under the influence of COKE and without a licence

At the Goroka Show in 1972

At the Mount Hagen Show in 1973

After he had smashed that one up ...

... he went back to driving a more conventional model - note his safety boots, though

Pacing out the Arawa court to ensure it has the correct dimensions
with his partner who's just had brain surgery and is still wearing bandages

He started with Bechtel in 1970 and then took over my job at Camp Catering Services - which became S.H.R.M. - in late 1972 and stayed until 1976. His reasons for staying that long were the low court fees at the Arawa Tennis Club and the free Arnott's Scotch Finger bikkies.

During a trip to the Mt Hagen Show he became interested in girls but first had to get chummy with the in-laws ...

... who covered him in pig's fat, put some feathers on his head, and gave him this choice of two:

Des Hudson (centre) after the initiation ceremony

You may have noticed that in the first photo he wears a goldwatch whereas in the second photo he is bare-armed (as well as -arsed).

It's known as the bride price which was negotiated on the basis of 'get one for the price of two and get the second one for free'.

He was able to keep the price down (his watch was a cheap SEIKO) by doing a trade-in - see below:

Nancy Williams from Canada

P.S. After leaving Bougainville, Des got himself a plastic spade and bucket and for the next eleven years worked in the world's largest sandbox, Saudi Arabia, (where we met again in 1982) before being transferred to the company's office in New York where he stayed for the next 28 years (he lacks imagination and just stays put) until his retirement in late 2015. He now lives in Fairfield in Connecticut, practising his American accent and playing granddad to a string of doting (and praying) grandchildren.