Bougainville Copper Ltd is keen to re-open the Panguna mine and is promising a more equitable sharing of wealth with landowners and the Autonomous Bougainville Government.
Bougainville's Panguna Copper mine Photo: Supplied
Papua New Guinea's Post Courier reported the company chairman, Robert Burns, was in Buka last week and met with Bougainville cabinet ministers and landowner groups to put forward the company's proposals for a start-up by the year 2020.
The company proposed that from 2020 it would inject $US350 million dollars into the ABG's coffers.
And it said $US25 million would be available for distribution among the nine landowner associations closely connected with the mine.
BCL operated the Panguna mine for 18 years as a subsidiary company of Rio Tinto until it was shut down by the civil war.
Rio Tinto walked away last year, splitting its shares between the PNG and ABG governments.
This move prompted the Bougainville President, John Momis, to threaten legal action.
He was also angry that Rio Tinto had done nothing to clean up the environmental and social damage wrought by the mine.