Papua New Guinean authorities have shut down a Chinese-owned nickel processing plant for breaching safety and mining laws, after the operator spilled tens of thousands of litres of toxic slurry into a bay in August.
PNG’s Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) chose to take punitive action against the Ramu Nico plant, which is majority owned by the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC), after it failed to fix problems the authority identified while investigating the spill.
These included incompetency among operators at the plant in PNG’s Madang province, problems with the spillage containment system, and inadequate equipment maintenance.
The authority said the processing facility would not be permitted to reopen until these issues were fixed — effectively halting all of Ramu Nico’s mining operations for the time being.
On August 24, a pump failure at the mine’s Basamuk Bay processing plant saw about 200,000 litres of toxic slurry spill out, with up to 80,000 litres making its way into the ocean — turning the water bright red, and staining the nearby shoreline.
For the rest of this article: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-25/chinese-owned-nickel-plant-in-png-shut-down-after-toxic-spill/11636086