Kainantu

The Kainantu underground gold mine located in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, 180 kilometres west of Lae, was placed on care and maintainance by it owner Barrick Gold Limited, in early 2009 whilst it undertakes a reapraisal of the mine's long term viability. Barrick Gold Limited had purchased the Kainantu mine from Highlands Pacific Limited in December 2007.

Barrick Gold Accesses Large Exploration Area with Kainantu Mine Acquisition
The Kainantu mine purchase undertaken by Barrick Gold Limited was attractive because it also contained three exploration licences and two mining easements, a lease for mining purposes and the mining lease itself, totalling a land area of 2,900 square kilometres in the highly prospective Eastern Highlands Province.

Kainantu Mine began Processing Gold in 2006
Processing of the gold bearing ore mined from the Kainantu underground gold mine began in 2006. The high grade ore was then trucked from the mine, that is situated on an extremely steep ridge, to the gold processing plant that is built on the flats below the site in the Ramu Valley. At the time the mine had an expected life of 10 years. In 2006 the Kainantu mine produced 25,896 grams of gold and a year later, in 2007 this production had been lifted to 547,359 grams.

Kainantu Golf Mine Had Experienced Much Hardship Since Starting Production
The Kainantu gold mine had experienced its share of problems during its short life span as in 2004 local landowners threatened to stop the mine from working unless it honoured certain agreements it had entered into with the local people when mining at the site was approved. Two years later, in 2006, extremely heavy rainfall caused a mudslide at the mine's remote exploration accommodation camp resulting in the deaths of 10 local people.

Barrick Gold Inherits Farm-in Deal with Triple Plate Junction as Part of Kainantu Purchase
Barrick Gold Limited acquired the Kainantu mine from Highlands Pacific Limited along with a farm-in deal with Triple Plate Junction. This deal increased its exploratory area to 5,300 square kilomertres. The joint venture arrangement and farm-in agreement with Triple Plate Junction gave Barrick Gold access to exploration licence 1369. Triple Plate Junction is a company carrying out gold exploration activities in Vietnam and PNG. It also has joint venture arrangements with Newmont, Newcrest and Gold Anomaly, as well as with Barrick Gold Limited.

Kainantu Mine Workers Lose out if Kainantu Mine Doesn't Re-open
Barrick's acquisition of the Kainantu underground gold mine initially gave hope to the workers at the mine as it had been suffering severe losses since it began gold production because of mine dilution, however, the farm-in agreement with Triple Plate Junction, that went with the Kainantu acquisition, was the bonus Barrick was looking for as it also gave it access to the highly prospective Wamun tenement. Part of the agreement Barrick made with Highlands Pacific was to retain all employees working at the Kainantu mine and honour all Highlands Pacific commitments to its stakeholders. Circumstances, such as the low quality of gold being mined at Kainantu following the acquisition and the lower gold price in recent years has prevented the mine from re-opening to date.
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