View Single Post
  #184  
Old 06-28-2019, 10:55 PM
StainlessSteelCynic's Avatar
StainlessSteelCynic StainlessSteelCynic is offline
Registered Registrant
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Western Australia
Posts: 2,375
Default

And logistics in that region will be excessively difficult. The only reasons there's even roads in some of those areas east of the border is because the mining companies working there, earning enough money to justify making & maintaining those roads.

In other areas there's nothing other than foot paths or animal trails.
Most items will have to go in by air transport or be carried in by porters and with a war in full swing, airspace is obviously going to be contested.

Ok Tedi is probably the most well known mining lease/company site in the area. It's approximately 10km from the border in some places but that's 10 kilometres of mountainous, jungle terrain. However there are other mining leases much closer to the border, one of the Ok Tedi leases is as close as 5 or 6 kilometres

Mind you, those mines are probably part of the reason why Indonesia wants to add the place to it's empire - copper, nickel, silver & gold are the big money makers but there's also cobalt, platinum, iron, chromium, molybdenum and rare earth elements. Because of the volcanic nature of some regions, there's also likely to be decent deposits of gemstones such as diamonds (the islands of New Britain, New Ireland and Bougainville are known to have deposits of diamonds although they've been deliberately left unexploited to allow for revenue in the future).

This map has some of the major minesites shown
https://www.niuminco.com.au/index.html


This link however gives a much better overview of the mining situation. It shows not just minesites but also exploration leases and the map itself has a good representation of the mountainous nature of the land.
http://portal.mra.gov.pg/Map/
Reply With Quote