What it takes to feed the thousands on Lihir

August 17, 2010

Have you ever wondered what it takes to operate and support the day to day living on the 5th largest gold mine in the world? NCS Lihir has been operating consistently for 15 years now and in recent years, the size and scope of our operations has increased to a community of residents, operations and staff of 3,500.

Lihir, NCS’ largest site, is located on Lihir Island – which is in the far north of PNG. This remote location provides significant challenges and can you imagine what kind of organisation it takes to supply, stock, warehouse and manage the vast volume of goods to keep operations running smoothly?

Here’s a glimpse of how we do it.

THE TEAM

The Warehouse Operations Manager, Tony Saldana, is supported by a team of 27 including a leading hand, four supervisors, several storeman, delivery drivers & fork lift operators, office administration staff and three purchasers. This relatively small group ensures that all food & janitorial products are ordered, shipped, stored and eventually delivered to the various camp dining rooms, the local deli and the sports & social club.

That’s an awesome responsibility!

THE WAREHOUSE

The warehouse is the hub of operations on Lihir and is approximately 600 m2, generally holding up to four weeks of stock on hand at any one time. The warehouse is conveniently located close to camps 1&2 and is next door to the new kitchen and dining room which is the final stages of construction.

Think about the kind of stock that needs to be stored in different kinds of conditions.

The main storage area inside the warehouse holds all the dry grocery lines, including many pallets of staple items such as rice, water, long life milk, sugar & biscuits. Outside the warehouse there are numerous other dry containers holding packaging products, paper towels, plus a shed that holds janitorial products and catering equipment.

The warehouse also has a large freezer containing products such as meat & seafood and cold room and reefer containers to store chilled products such as dairy & flour. There is also a section for fresh produce.

Supplies can arrive to site and into the warehouse on a daily, fortnightly and monthly basis. They are delivered by various means ranging from local banana boats to large ocean going container vessels from PNG and overseas. Local suppliers deliver fresh produce each day from communities on Lihir and surrounding islands of Namatanai and Kavieng.

CHALLENGES OF STEADY SUPPLY

Every day we face many challenges to ensure that the operation runs smoothly and many of the issues are logistical.

We often face delays at the wharf, changes to shipping schedules and simply getting containers from the wharf to either the warehouse or the lay down yard can also be a problem.

Due to the present high demand from other companies servicing the mining industry in PNG, we also experience a lack of availability of stock from suppliers based in PNG. So we always have to be on our toes to ensure that we can manage the stock that we have if we can’t get what we need.

Lack of storage space for containers, as well as stock is an issue we are trying to resolve and we are looking forward to our new freezer complex being completed which will allow us more of the much needed storage space.

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