A South African company is reported to be the most probable bidder for shares in New Caledonia’s Prony Resources.

As part of an already advanced takeover of the ailing southern plant of Prony Resources, the most probable bidder is reported to be South African group Sibaneye-Stillwater, local new media report.

Just like the other two major mining plants and smelters in New Caledonia, Prony Resources is facing acute hardships due to the emergence of Indonesia as a major player on the world market, compounded with New Caledonia’s violent unrest that broke out in May.

Prony Resources has been trying to find a possible company to take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent).

The process was recently described as very favourable to a “seriously interested” buyer.

Citing reliable sources, daily newspaper Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes yesterday named South Africa’s Sibanye-Stillwater.

The Johannesburg-based entity is a significant player on the minerals world market (including nickel, platinum and palladium) and owns, amongst other assets, a hydro-metallurgic processing plant in Sandouville (near Le Havre, western France) with a production capacity of 12,000 tonnes per year of high-grade nickel which it bought in February 2022 from French mining giant Eramet for 85 million euros (NZ$153 million).

The ultimate goal would be, for the South African player, to become a leader on the production market for innovative electric vehicles batteries, especially on the European market.

Southern Province President Sonia Backès had already hinted last week that one buyer had now been found and that one bidder had successfully reached advanced stages in the due diligence process.

If the deal eventuated, the new entity would take over the shares held by Swiss trader Trafigura (19 percent) and another block of shares held by the Southern Province to reach a total of 74 percent participation in Prony Resources stock, as part of a major restructuration of the company’s capital.

Prony Resources, in full operation mode, employs about 1300 staff.

Another 1700 are employed indirectly through sub-contractors.

It has paused its production to retain only up to 300 staff, in safety and maintenance mode, partly due to New Caledonia’s current unrest.

New Caledonian consortium’s surprise bid for mothballed Northern plant
Meanwhile, a local consortium of New Caledonian investors is reported to have made an 11-hour offer to take over and restart activity for the now mothballed Koniambo (KNS) nickel plant.

The plant’s furnaces were placed in “cold care and maintenance” mode at the end of August, six months after major shareholder Anglo-Swiss Glencore announced it wanted to withdraw and sell the 49 percent shares it has in the project.

This caused close to 1200 job losses and further 600 among sub-contractors.

Other bidders still interested
KNS claimed at least three foreign investors were still interested at this stage, but none of these have so far materialised.

Talks were however reported to continue behind the scenes, with interested parties even ready to travel and visit on-site, KNS Vice-President and spokesman Alexandre Rousseau told Reuters news agency earlier this month.

‘Okelani Group One’
But a so-called “Okelani Group One” (OGO), made up of three local partners, said their offer could revive the project with a different business model.

They say they have made an offer to KNS’s majority shareholder SMSP (Société Minière du Sud Pacifique, New Caledonia’s Northern province financial arm).

OGO president Florent Tavernier told public broadcaster NC la 1ère much depended on what Glencore intended to do with the staggering debt of some US$13.7 billion which KNS had accumulated over the past 10 years.

Another OGO partner, Gilles Hernandez, explained: “We would be targeting a niche market of very high quality nickel used in aeronautics and edge-cutting technologies, especially in Europe, where nickel is now classified as ‘strategic metal’.”

Although KNS was designed to produce 60,000 tonnes of nickel a year, that target was never reached.

OGO said it would only aim for 15,000 tonnes per year and would only re-employ 400 of the 1200 laid-off staff.

New Caledonia’s third nickel plant, owned by historic Société Le Nickel (SLN, a subsidiary of French mining giant Eramet), which is also facing major hardships for the same reasons, is said to currently operate at minimal capacity.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The voters in the second round of France’s national elections last weekend staved off an expected shift to the far-right. But the result in the Pacific territory Kanaky New Caledonia was also in many ways historic.

Of the two assembly representatives decided, a position fell on either side of the deep polarisation evident in the territory — one for loyalists, one for supporters of independence. But it is the independence side that will take the most from the result.

Turnout in the vote was remarkable, not only because of the violence in New Caledonia over recent months, which has curbed movement and public transport across the territory, but also because national elections have been seen particularly by independence parties as less relevant locally.

Not this time.

The two rounds of the elections saw voters arrive in droves, with 60 percent and 71 percent turnout respectively, compared to typically low levels of 35-40 percent in New Caledonia. Images showed long queues with many young people.

Voting was generally peaceful, although a blockade prevented voting in one Kanak commune during the first round.

After winning the first round, a hardline loyalist and independence candidate faced off in each constituency. The second round therefore presented a binary choice, effectively becoming a barometer of views around independence.

Sobering results for loyalists
While clearly not a referendum, it was the first chance to measure sentiment in this manner since the boycotted referendum in 2021, which had followed two independence votes narrowly favouring staying with France.

The resulting impasse about the future of the territory had erupted into violent protests in May this year, when President Emmanuel Macron sought unilaterally to broaden voter eligibility to the detriment of indigenous representation. Only Macron then called snap national elections.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

So the contest, as it unfolded in New Caledonia, represented high stakes for both sides.

In the event, loyalist Nicolas Metzdorf won 52.4 percent in the first constituency (Noumea and islands) over the independence candidate’s 47.6 percent. Independence candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou won 57.4 percent to the loyalist’s 42.6 percent in the second (Northern Province and outer suburbs of Noumea).

The results, a surprise even to independence leaders, were significant.

It is notable that in these national elections, all citizens are eligible to vote. Only local assembly elections apply the controversial voter eligibility provisions which provoked the current violence, provisions that advantage longstanding residents and thus indigenous independence supporters.

Independence parties’ success
Yet without the benefit of this restriction, independence parties won, securing a majority 53 percent (83,123 votes) to the loyalists’ 47 percent (72,897) of valid votes cast across the territory. They had won 43 percent and 47 percent in the two non-boycotted referendums.

Even in the constituency won by the loyalist, the independence candidate, daughter-in-law of early independence fighter Nidoïsh Naisseline, won 47 percent of the vote.

These are sobering results for loyalists.

Independence party candidate Emmanuel Tjibaou, 48, carried particular symbolism. The son of the assassinated founding father of the independence movement Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Emmanuel had eschewed politics to this point, instead taking on cultural roles including as head of the Kanak cultural development agency.

He is a galvanising figure for independence supporters.

Emmanuel Tjibaou is now the first independence assembly representative in 38 years. He won notwithstanding France redesigning the two constituencies in 1988 specifically to prevent an independence representative win by including part of mainly loyalist Noumea in each.

A loyalist stronghold has been broken.

Further strain on both sides
While both a loyalist and independence parliamentarian will now sit in Paris and represent their different perspectives, the result will further strain the two sides.

Pro-independence supporters will be energised by the strong performance and this will increase expectations, especially among the young. The responsibility on elders is heavy. Tjibaou described the vote as  “a call for help, a cry of hope”. He has urged a return to the path of dialogue.

At the same time, loyalists will be concerned by independence party success. Insecurity and fear, already sharpened by recent violence, may intensify. While he referred to the need for dialogue, Nicolas Metzdorf is known for his tough uncompromising line.

Paradoxically the ongoing violence means an increased reliance on France for the reconstruction that will be a vital underpinning for talks. Estimates for rebuilding have  exceeded 2 billion euros (NZ$3.6 billion), with more than 800 businesses, countless schools and houses attacked, many destroyed.

Yet France itself is reeling after the snap elections returned no clear winner. Three blocs are vying for power, and are divided within their own ranks over how government should be formed. While French presidents have had to “cohabit” with an assembly majority of the opposite persuasion three times before, never has a president faced no clear majority.

It will take time, perhaps months, for a workable solution to emerge, during which New Caledonia is hardly likely to take precedence.

As New Caledonia’s neighbours prepare to meet for the annual Pacific Islands Forum summit next month, all will be hoping that the main parties can soon overcome their deep differences and find a peaceful local way forward.

Denise Fisher is a visiting fellow at ANU’s Centre for European Studies. She was an Australian diplomat for 30 years, serving in Australian diplomatic missions as a political and economic policy analyst in many capitals. The Australian Consul-General in Noumea, New Caledonia (2001-2004), she is the author of France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (2013).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Northern Governor Gary Juffa has joined Papua New Guinea’s police chief and the Prime Minister in calling for Papua New Guineans to lay down arms and cease acts of local terrorism.

“I stand with the Commissioner of Police, David Manning, and Prime Minister James Marape to apply the full force of the law to quell all forms of local terrorism in PNG and, particularly, in Northern Province.

“I am particularly concerned as a few weeks ago my Oro Bay RPSC [rural police station commander] Sergeant Terry Giwaya was ruthlessly gunned down only a few kilometres away from his station,” Governor Juffa said.

“I commend Commissioner Manning and his ACP Southern Clement Dalla for their swift action in responding to our plight, seeing through the proficient capture of the alleged thugs and the recovery of an alleged police firearm.

“The success of this operation is attributed also to the provincial police command, our local Northern police personnel,” Juffa said

“All gloves off” was not an order given lightly by any police commissioner or prime minister but with “our ignorance of the rule of law” and the disrespect to its enforcement machinery — the RPNGC — such an order was “timely and very necessary”.

Law and order priority
Juffa added that law and order in Northern Province would always be a priority on a par with health, infrastructure and education and had seen the Northern provincial government spending close to 1 million kina (about NZ$463,000) to date.

“Every citizen has a right to move freely without fear and to engage in commerce with the full covering of the laws of our country,” Juffa said.

“I stand with my prime minister and our police commissioner to clamp down on local terrorism and elements that fuel the atrocities.”

Governor Juffa indicated plans were afoot to take the body of Sergeant Giwaya back home, including an official programme scheduled to take place after the September 16 independence celebrations next weekend.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A one metre-deep hole in the ground is all there is to show of an almost K2.7 million state contract project in Papua New Guinea’s Northern Province, reports PNG Post-Courier.

The project was for the design, pre-fabrication and construction of a community health post building with support facilities for Kiorata in Sohe district, and valued at K2,682,417 (about NZ$1.06 million).

“The contractor did absolutely nothing except dig a hole in the ground,” said Justice Minister Bryan Kramer.

This project is among others that have been investigated by the State Audit and Recovery Taskforce (SART) initiated by the Department of Justice and Attorney-General working with nine other State agencies.

“The contractors involved in these failed projects have been taken to the National Court for breach of contract,” Kramer said.

“These court proceedings are now before the National Court for orders to be made.

“As with all the court proceedings filed by the taskforce, they will be asking for the projects to be completed at the contractors’ own cost or funds paid for the project to be refunded with interest and costs of proceedings.”

Suspect projects
The SART-conducted site inspections last year in some cases that were suspected of being failed projects despite payments being made, and had been referred to them by government departments.

“The taskforce members travelled to the project sites, some of which are located in the most remote parts of the country, and discovered that almost all the projects were not completed,” Kramer said.

He said many of these projects involved the construction of school buildings and health centres.

“Most of the projects were, apart from some land clearing, not constructed at all.

“Some were 10 to 80 percent finished, and others were completed but with poor design and materials used, so water was coming into the building during the rainy season, or termites were already eating away the timber used,” Kramer said.

“The taskforce compiled detailed reports with photographs, which were then used to file court proceedings against the defaulting contractors for breach of contract.”

This year the taskforce has filed several court proceedings against contractors from site inspections in 2020 for failed projects which cost the state more than K7 million (about NZ$2.8 million).

Billons of kina are lost to undelivered state contracts every year and the SART initiative uses the claims by and against the State Act 1996 to make claims against contractors for breach of contract.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz