Global gold major Barrick has told the workforce at its Porgera joint venture (JV) mine that most of them will be retrenched in the coming weeks, affecting 2 650 Papua New Guinea nationals.
Expatriate employees had already been retrenched and the local workforce would have their employment terminated before the end of July, operator Barrick Niugini Limited (BNL) said in a statement on Wednesday.
BNL, which operates the mine as a JV between Barrick and China’s Zijin Mining, is locked in a dispute with Papua New Guinea over the government’s refusal to extend a special mining lease to Porgera. The government’s decision is the subject of an ongoing judicial review in the courts.