Kumul Mineral Holdings managing director Sarimu Kanu is championing regional consolidation to unlock stranded resources and build a more resilient mining sector in Papua New Guinea.
For Sarimu Kanu, there’s no doubting the recent success of Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) resources sector. From the ongoing expansion of the Ok Tedi mining operation to the rapid turnaround of the Porgera joint venture, the industry is being buoyed by a handful of mega-projects achieving big results.
As the managing director of Kumul Mineral Holdings, Kanu has been at the helm of many of the success stories. Kumul has a direct shareholding in both the Ok Tedi and Porgera operations, as well as a stake in Tolu Minerals. On a broader front, the state-owned enterprise represents the national interest across the mining and resources industry.
But while PNG celebrates these mega-project successes, Kanu is already mapping out a decidedly different future for the country’s mining sector. His vision doesn’t revolve around finding the next Porgera or Ok Tedi. Instead, he’s looking to the model that underpins some of the world’s most famous mining economies.
“When you look at the developed countries, Australia, Canada, and the US, of course they have big mines,” Kanu told PNG Mining. “But what actually drives their industries is the small prospectors and the small mining companies – there are a lot of them.
“The masses consolidated are making more money than the big boys – and contributing to the economy. If not by taxes, it’s by associated business: there’s banking, there are supermarkets, there are all these services that feed off the smaller miners.”
Building on success
To understand where Kanu wants to take PNG’s mining industry, it’s worth examining what Kumul has already achieved with its flagship operations.
Ok Tedi is a particular point of pride. The mine is 100 percent PNG-owned, with Kumul holding 67 per cent and the Western Highlands government and landowners holding the remaining one third. When Kumul came on board, the previous management was planning to shut down operations in 2025 – a date that was later pushed back only slightly to 2029.
“One of our first strategies was to have a look at Ok Tedi as a business, as a contributor of cash to the economy of PNG and to the people,” Kanu said.
“It is 100 percent owned by PNG. So why are we optimising net present value? If it’s BHP, of course you would maximise this.
“We looked at delivering more benefits to the people, which meant lowering the net present value and extending the mine life.”
The result: Ok Tedi’s life has been extended to 2050, leaving it on track to deliver what Kanu estimates will be 30 billion kina ($10.8 billion) worth of additional social benefits.
But even that isn’t the end of the story.
Like all major open pits, Ok Tedi sits above deep-seated ore bodies – the source of the original mineral deposits. Kumul is now exploring these underground resources, with the potential to extend operations all the way to 2084 through what Kanu calls “the O’tuk” – the Ok Tedi underground.
Then there’s Porgera, where Kumul owns 36.5 per cent alongside Barrick and Zijin’s 24.5 percent stakes each. After four years of shutdown ending in 2023, the mine has delivered some spectacular results. Up to June this year, Porgera declared nearly one billion kina ($360 million) in dividends and half of that again in corporate income tax.
“That’s something no other mining company has achieved for a long, long time,” Kanu said. “And this was achieved despite law-and-order issues and shutdowns on the Highlands Highway. Even bridges were destroyed, and we had to rebuild them very quickly because Porgera is now contributing significantly to the country.”
Consolidation ahead
These successes at Ok Tedi and Porgera provide the foundation for Kanu’s more ambitious vision: a regional consolidation strategy that could transform PNG’s mining landscape even more dramatically.
The problem, as Kanu sees it, is straightforward. Across PNG, junior exploration companies have identified numerous prospects with resources defined to international standards. But these operators lack the capital to develop their discoveries into operating mines. Left alone, many of these deposits will never be developed because they’re not economical as standalone operations.
Kanu’s solution is to consolidate multiple prospects within a region around a central processing facility.
The economics are compelling: a main deposit might underpin a plant producing 150,000 ounces of gold per year. On its own, that’s viable. But by trucking additional ore from nearby satellite deposits, each capable of delivering between 60,000 and 120,000 ounces annually, the consolidated operation could support annual production of 500,000 ounces or more.
“It’s a chain reaction,” Kanu said. “All of a sudden you are economising prospects that would never be economical if they were developed on their own. You have half a million ounces a year in a consolidated strategy that would never materialise if you left it to the tenement holders alone.”
The strategy requires Kumul to take an active role early in the process. Rather than waiting for junior explorers to advance their projects – or to fail trying – Kumul is identifying promising prospects and doing the preliminary work to demonstrate their quality.
“What I want to do is talk to the tenement holders; we take over and then we consolidate the prospect into this particular strategy,” Kanu said, reinforcing Kumul’s role as the initiator of the process.
“We don’t want to be seen as a predator, waiting for someone else to do the hard work and then we come in,” he said.
“I want to be the catalyst for bringing back exploration into the country.”
Kumul currently has around five copper-gold exploration prospects under evaluation, primarily focused on porphyry-type deposits. The plan is to upgrade the geological database to a level where major mining companies will see both the quality of the resource and Kumul’s serious intent.
Kanu hopes to connect with major players to share prospects that come with high quality data and the backing of the national mining operator.
“’It’s about them understanding that we are genuine about the industry that we want to build. It’s not short-term – we’re looking long-term,” he said.
Big and small projects in the pipeline
While the regional consolidation strategy represents Kanu’s vision for transforming PNG’s mining sector, Kumul isn’t ignoring the traditional pipeline of larger projects that could potentially come online over the next five years.
Wafi-Golpu, Frieda River, Wowo Gap, Mambare, and Yandera all feature in Kumul’s planning models as potential major developments. These projects, at various stages of feasibility and permitting, represent the continuation of PNG’s mega-project tradition – each capable of generating significant revenue, employment, and economic activity in their own right.
“In the next five years, there is a stream of projects. They are already there that we know. We have incorporated them in our model,” Kanu said.
But even as these larger projects progress through development timelines potentially spanning several years, Kanu sees the consolidation strategy operating on a different, potentially faster track. The junior explorer prospects that Kumul is targeting have already been drilled and have defined resources. The challenge isn’t proving the geology – it’s making the economics work.
This dual-track approach, supporting the advancement of major projects while simultaneously building out a network of smaller, consolidated operations, reflects Kanu’s belief that PNG’s mining future shouldn’t depend solely on securing the next giant discovery. Instead, the country can build a more resilient, diversified mining economy by making better use of mineral wealth that’s already been identified but remains undeveloped.
In search of co-development
Underpinning Kanu’s vision for PNG’s mining future is a fundamental shift in how communities, provincial governments, and mining companies work together. The traditional model – where mining companies operate largely independently while communities and governments receive royalties and compensation – needs to evolve, he argues.
“Our provincial governments and our communities around mining projects are not adequately taken on board to be part of the governance of a mine,” Kanu said. “They cannot be just passive receivers of royalties. They should be co-developers of sustainable projects.”
The distinction matters because passive receipt of mining revenues rarely translates into long-term development. Kanu points to the Misima mine, recently acquired by Ok Tedi, as a cautionary example. When that project closed, there was little lasting infrastructure in the surrounding community to show for decades of operation.
Instead, Kanu envisions a model of shared responsibility from the outset.
If Kumul builds a health centre as part of a mining development, the provincial government should provide the workers to staff it as part of its own development plan. “The facility then becomes genuinely sustainable because multiple stakeholders are invested in its success,” he said.
This approach also aligns with growing international expectations around environmental, social, and governance standards. Kumul has already begun engaging with major financial institutions on governance frameworks and sustainability reporting and the company expects its partners to be on board with these benchmarks.
Whether Kanu’s vision materialises depends largely on execution. Many factors will need to fall into place, including international partners embracing the model and governance structures evolving to support genuine co-development.
But the ambition itself marks a significant departure from decades of mega-project dependency. If successful, PNG’s mining future might look less like a handful of giants dominating the landscape, and more like the diverse, resilient and integrated mining economies that Kanu admires in Australia, Canada, and the US.
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