Following recent announcements that it will aim to reduce operating costs at its Papua New Guinea sites, Newcrest Mining Ltd will cut at least 150 jobs from its workforce at the Lihir gold mine.

According to The National, PNG country manager Peter Aitsi has confirmed that ‘positions at the Newcrest Lihir gold operations have been reduced between 5% to 7% of the overall workforce … specifically 10% of our expatriate workforce and around 8% from our national workforce.’ The mine employs early 3,000 direct employees and 2,000 contractors.

The board of Newcrest has also appointed former Australian Securities Exchange Chairman, Dr Maurice Newman AC, to conduct an independent review of the company’s disclosure and investor relations practices.

Chairman, Don Mercer, said the board was ‘deeply concerned’ about the criticism of the way in which the company announced asset writedowns in early June, which has been described as the largest single write-down in gold mining history.

The company announced a US$6 billion reduction in the value of its assets with around half of the writedown coming from Newcrest’s PNG operations.

Newman’s inquiry will run parallel to investigations already underway by market regulators at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Securities Exchange