When the 7.5 magnitude earthquake of February 26th, 2018, damaged the Porgera Joint Venture-owned Power Station in Hela, operation at the Porgera Gold Mine swung into maintenance mode.
PJV mobile equipment maintenance superintendent, Paul Bailey, remembers it all too well like it was only yesterday.
“From the earthquake, we all dug our heels in at maintenance. We had lots of trades here and needed across the business...whether it was boilermakers sent up to Hides to rebuild the power plant or down working on the generators.
“We had fitters that went underground…we had mechanics at the Anawe Power Station.
“So when we did come back to full production we had fairly good availability on our machines.
“Thanks to everyone that dug in and we got our power back a lot earlier than planned so a good effort by everyone.”
Bailey commended the efforts of both the tradespeople and the trade assistants (TA), at the occasion of six TAs becoming tradespersons, having obtained trades certificates from the National Apprenticeship and Trade Testing Board (NATTB) under the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.
On 26 August 2018, Barrick (Niugini) Limited Executive Managing Director Anthony Esplin presented the certificates to Pes Lai, Yuti Maso and Albert Kame.
The other three were: Samson John, Minamao Lailyo, and Albert Allen.
“How proud we are of the apprentices that have finished their program.
“It’s a fantastic local employment initiative and keeps allowing us to do our best work with people from our local community here,” Esplin said.
“You have really been a key part of it and I think that willingness to go and work in other areas and pitch in where we need help, it’s one of the things that make Porgera so special.”
