Newcrest Lihir

The ISCORE campaign, an acronym for ‘I Sort, Clean, Organise, Regulate, Every time’ compliments Newcrest Lihir’s management operating system, which inspires a culture of operating excellence and high performance in its transformation journey. It also resonates with the Newcrest Safety and Sustainability pillar in keeping people safe and healthy and respecting communities and the environment.

NCS recently hosted a group of 27 Hotel Management students from Palie Vocational School as part of the school’s annual industry excursion. In hosting this excursion, NCS aligned with Newcrest’s People pillar that empowers and develops people at all levels.

The excursion began at LSSC where Club Manager Joseph Vera welcomed the students. Vera noted that the excitement of the day was mutual because the in-house culinary team was also eager to share their skills with students interested in pursuing a career in the hospitality industry.

The team is responsible for deploying and retrieving sediments tubes -that act as traps- fastened to coral reefs at locations all around Lihir operation and the surrounding islands.

These traps sit on the seabed and collect settling particles of sand, silt and other suspended solid material from the water column. The dive team removes the traps every three months and replaces them with new traps. They analyse contents of the old tubes at the site’s laboratory.

Plastic straws can only be used once, but it takes 200 years to break down in the environment.

Previously, the operation was using 100,000+ plastic straws monthly for alcohol testing. But with paper straws, the number of straws used monthly is now being reduced because an employee can now use a paper straw several times before it can be disposed.

Lihir’s Purchasing Coordinator, Liz Rogers, said the paper straws were trialed on site months ago to assess how they work.

Lihir’s 91.5 FM transmits 300 Watts and has the capacity to capture and empower approximately 60 percent of listeners with information on development issues relating to economy, education, health and safety, announcements or ‘toksave’ and entertain them through music and inspirational dramas and stories.

It is fully funded by Newcrest Lihir and managed by the Communication and Public Affairs (CPA) department. Radio Station Senior Advisor, Roseanne Kulupi, leads the CPA team in broadcasting live four hours every day.

Wanpis, from Masahet Island in the Lihir group, and East New Britain parentage, was recently certified by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

Louis Wanpis is a survey technician with Newcrest Lihir (Lihir Gold Limited) since 2016, attached with the survey team within the Projects and Engineering department.

Royalties were paid by Newcrest Lihir (Lihir Gold Limited) to the New Ireland Provincial Government (NIPG), the Nimamar Local Level Government (NLLG) which the Lihir group of islands come under, and traditional block owners of the Special Mining Lease (SML) area of Lihir mine. 

In a statement, Newcrest said NIPG received 50 percent of the royalties which equates to K340 million while the NLLG was paid K203 million (30 percent) and the block Owners or landholders of the SML were paid K135 million

Regina Andalu is a contractor with business partner Placements (PNG) Limited. 

Twenty-four-year old Andalu, from Tari, has proven that PNG women are capable of becoming competent crane operators. Andalu’s results from her verification of competencies (VOC) at Lihir was impressive. 

She completed the Dogger (DG), crane non slew (CN) and slewing crane up to 100 ton (C1) VOCs with very high pass rates. Andalu completed these three assessments in four hours. 

The TMU, christened Anako 13, has engineered out the risk of personnel exposure to geysering events.

Anako 13 allows Lihir’s geothermal technicians to remotely operate a mobile arm from the vehicle and lower or raise a probe safely and simultaneously in the measuring and recording of temperature, water level and depth. This is all done from the safety and comfort of the vehicle cabin. 

The certificates mark the completion of Level 1 of the three part belt splicing training program that these employees have been undergoing for the past eight months.

It was a proud moment for the belt splicing and fixed plant maintenance (FPM) teams who have been enthusiastic and focused on upgrading their skills and knowledge in this specialised area of mining work.