Well, after announcing missed production guidance recently, New Guinea Gold's Sinivit start up problems take a new twist (click here).
Apparently all it takes to shutdown a mining operation is New Guinea is 12 guys on foot walking up to the gate and demanding that it be shut down.
The same thing happened to New Guinea's largest gold miner, Lihir Gold on January 27, 2009 (click here). There were only shutdown for three days (click here).
Both of these are good examples of one category of political risks: Troubles with locals. The other big category is trouble with the national governments (in the form of tax increases, nationalization, etc.).
So, investing in mining companies in politically risky countries has risks. We'll see how this turns out.
MontyHigh
Comments