Qualla: Porgera Gold Mine

Porgera Gold Mine: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, CC0. In January 2009 the Norwegian government's sovereign wealth fund — one of the largest pools of investment capital on the planet — announced it was divesting from Barrick Gold. The reason was Porgera. The mine's practice of dumping tailings directly into the river system, Norway's finance ministry concluded, constituted "severe environmental damage" and was "in breach of international norms." Barrick's assurances that the operations caused no long-term or irreversible harm, the ministry added, carried "little credibility." The decision was unusual both in its bluntness and in its subject. Norway's fund had not divested from any other gold mine in the world. Porgera, in the high rainforest of Papua New Guinea's Enga Province, had become something the international community could no longer hold at arm's length.

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Image: Daderot | CC0

Porgera Gold Mine: A Mine at 2,500 Meters

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia, Public domain. The Porgera Gold Mine sits at the head of the Porgera Valley in Enga Province, on rainforest-covered slopes between 2,200 and 2,700 meters. The region gets extraordinary rainfall, is prone to landslides, and sits on active fault zones. Production began in 1990 under Placer Dome, ...

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Image: Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Porgera Gold Mine: The Security Force

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini), Public domain. The mine employs a private security force of between 400 and 500 people, some licensed to use lethal force. Over ten years, according to the company's own figures, these guards killed eight people; community associations put the figure at 14. Rising insecurity around the mine led...

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Image: Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini) | Public domain

Porgera Gold Mine: The Wopkaimin Scale, the Porgeran Scale

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicxon.Piaso, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2009, of 2,427 employees at the mine, 93.49% were Papua New Guinean nationals — 1,606 of them Porgerans, 33 from elsewhere in Enga, 630 from other parts of PNG, and 158 expatriates. With another 500 contractors on top of a 2,500-person payroll, Porgera ranks among the largest ...

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Image: Nicxon.Piaso | CC BY-SA 4.0

Porgera Gold Mine: Closure and Reopening

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini), Public domain. The Porgera Gold Mine closed in April 2020 when the PNG government declined to renew Barrick's special mining lease. Barrick responded with litigation in Papua New Guinean courts and at an international tribunal. Negotiations dragged on for years. The site of the last open pit ex...

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Image: Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini) | Public domain

Porgera Gold Mine: The Explosions and the Daily Cost

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini), Public domain. Two blasts bracket the mine's operational history. In August 1994, eleven workers were killed when an explosion destroyed the Dyno Wesfarmers explosives factory at the mine; the blast left a crater 40 meters across and 15 meters deep, damaging property up to two kilometers away. ...

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Image: Richard Farbelini at English Wikipedia (Richard Farbelini) | Public domain