Lihir

The Lihir gold mine on Niolam Island, 900 kilometres north east of Port Moresby, in the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea, is wholly owned and operated by Newcrest Mining Limited through its subsidiary company Lihir Gold Limited. Newcrest Mining Limited acquired Lihir Gold under a court approved scheme in August 2010.

Gold is Mined at Lihir in an Extinct Volcano That is Still Geothermally Active
The gold being mined from the Lihir deposit lies within an extinct volcano, Luise Caldera, although the volcano remains geothermally active it is regarded as being host to one of the world's largest gold deposits. Most of the ore mined at the Lihir mine is refactory and treated with the use of pressure oxidation before any gold is recovered under the conventional leach process to produce gold dore. The Lihir mine produced 649,340 ounces of gold in the June 2013 financial year. It has now produced more than nine million ounces of gold since it commenced production in 1997.

Lihir Mine Facilities Expanded in 2013
In early 2013 Newcrest Mining completed a major expansion of the mine gold processing plant that included the installation of a new crusher as well as upgrading the plant itself. The plant expansion increased the flexibility of the facility as well as improving the reliability of equipment which lowered fixed production costs on a tonnage basis. At the same time Newcrest Mining increased its power generation capability and water supply. The upgrading of the facilities increased its annual production capability to 1.2 million ounces.

Lihir Mine Tailings Disposed of in the sea
Because of the heavy rainfall experienced at the Lihir mine site, tailings are disposed of using a deep sea tailings placement system. This manner of disposal was chosen because of no suitable area being available to store the tailings and because of the high seismicity of the area. The tailings created in the processing plant are detoxified within the mining lease before being disposed of off shore.
Lihir Mine Faces Expansion if the Ladolam Deposit Proves Beneficial
Ongoing exploration has also identified several nearby and partly overlapping mineral deposits within the Luise Caldera volcano lease known as the Ladolam Deposit. The full extent of the mineralisation has yet to be defined but is known to be open at depth, along strike and east of the Pacific Ocean. Drilling has been encouraging to date and is expected to result in a possible extension of the known resource.

Lihir Mine Workforce Mainly of Papua New Guinea Extraction
The Lihir gold mine employs approximately 5,000 people, many of whom are residential with their numbers bolstered by a fly-in-fly-out workforce. Approximately 90 percent of the employees are of Papua New Guinea extraction.

Gold was discovered at Lihir in 1982. Soon after a major exploration program got underway with a feasibility study undertaken by Niugini Mining Limited and Rio Tinto, with the aim of constructing a mine at the site as a joint venture operation. In 1995 the Lihir Special Mining Lease was granted to the joint venture partners and a new company established known as Lihir Gold Limited (LGL). Rio Tinto created the Lihir Management Company to go ahead with the development and operation of the mine on behalf of LGL. The first Lihir gold was poured in 1997. Rio Tinto pulled out of the arrangement in 2005, a move that left LGL as the sole owner and operator of the mine. Newcrest Mining Limited acquired
LGL in 2010.
†