Newcrest hopeful to end Toguraci development halt soon

Australian miner Newcrest Mining Limited downplays the significance development halt on its Toguraci gold project in Halmahera, North Maluku and is optimistic that it would eventually be able to resolve illegal miners problem.

?Toguraci is not the first goldmine to have suffered from this issue and the others have been satisfactorily resolved with time and a bit of patience,? said Managing Director and CEO AJ Palmer when addressing the company?s 2003 annual general meeting in Melbourne Wednesday.

On Monday Newcrest decided to temporarily halt development of Toguraci mine, which is originally planned to come into production by the end of this year, after local people conducted unauthorized mining in the company?s mining area.

Palmer said Newcrest also faced difficult local issues when commencing Gosowong mine few years back. ?With patience and understanding our team was able to successfully complete the construction and comssioning stage of Gosowong plant,? said Palmer.

Gosowong mine had ceased operations due to reserves depletion, but the facilities will be used to process ore from Toguraci mine, which is only 2 kms away.

??.we are hopeful that the delay will not be a long time,? said Palmer.

Toguraci mine containes 300,000 ounces of gold.

Illegal miners had been rampant in Indonesia after the fall of dictator Soeharto. Australian miner Aurora Gold (now Abelle Limited) had to give up two of its highly prospective mining concessions in North Sulawesi after thousands of illegal miner occupied and exploited the company?s concession.

Newcrest holds 82.5 percent equity in PT Nusa Halmahera Mineral, which runs the Halmahera gold mine, while state miner PT Aneka Tambang Tbk, holds the remaining 17.5 percent. (alex)