Patrick Nomos | 24/09/2026
The recent destruction by fire of millions of dollars’ worth of new heavy haul trucks, earthmoving equipment and mining camp facilities at the defunct Panguna copper and gold mine, Autonomous Region of Bougainville (AROB), Papua New Guinea (PNG) has revealed the long-held animosity between the various Panguna landowner groups and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG). The equipment, belonging to Lloyds Panguna Metals and Energy Limited, a subsidiary of Indian firm Lloyds Metals and Energy Limited (LMEL), and Thrivenny Earthmovers and Infra Limited, was destroyed in an arson attack by approximately twenty men armed with high-powered weapons at the Panguna mine site on 13/9/2026.1 An ensuing shootout between the arsonists and members of the Bougainville Police Service (BPS) left at least one person dead and the BPS has since arrested multiple suspects in connection with the violence.
This outbreak of violence at the Panguna mine-site has been brewing since January 2026 when Bougainville’s president, Ishmael Toroama, rejected a proposed partnership with China’s CMOC Group Limited to redevelop the Panguna mine and instead directed Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) to engage LMEL regarding a potential partnership for the mine’s redevelopment. President Toroama’s decision regarding the mine’s redevelopment was preceded by his signing, in late 2025, of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with LMEL, completely bypassing BCL’s months-long search for a mine redevelopment partner. BCL had explicitly advised against LMEL’s involvement, warning that the Indian iron-ore producer lacked the necessary technical and financial capacity for a copper and gold project of this scale. As early as 2020, BCL estimated that as much as USD6 billion in investment and six years of infrastructure development may be required for the Panguna mine to recommence production.
Adding to the controversy surrounding President Toroama’s unilateral decision, PNG’s Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project reported in August 2026 that just weeks before the MOU signing, LMEL’s managing director arranged for the president’s wife, Betty Toroama, to fly to India to receive a life-saving kidney transplant, at no cost to the president. President Toroama has since admitted to accepting this assistance but denied that this had influenced his decision to sign the MOU with LMEL.
To understand President Toroama’s close links to a previously unheralded Indian iron-ore producer, an examination of his political journey to the Bougainville presidency is revealing. During the Bougainville Crisis (1988 – 1997), Ishmael Tororama rose to the rank of commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA). Following the cessation of hostilities between the BRA and the PNG Defence Force, and the subsequent signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001, he funded his political career from two revenue sources. The primary source was his group’s twenty per cent holding in Komeri Holdings Limited, one of at least three Panguna-area landowner companies that, from approximately 2007 – 2013, entered into arrangements with foreign investors from India, South Korea and China to extract and sell scrap metal from the abandoned mine. The investors supplied forklifts, trucks, and cutting equipment, and shared the proceeds with the landowner companies. The secondary source of finance was through his security company, Islands Corporation, which provided security for the foreign operators involved in the scrap metal extraction. While the available records do not identify LMEL as one of the Indian investors involved in the 2007 – 2013 scrap metal extraction and sale, it is likely that Ishmael Toroama’s close involvement with these investors informed his unilateral decision to sign an MOU with LMEL in late 2025.
While Bougainville’s political leadership continues to narrowly focus on a redeveloped Panguna mine to provide the economic underpinning for the region’s proposed political independence, it is failing to take advantage of the income-earning opportunities offered by expertly managed tuna fisheries and cash-crop projects based on Bougainville’s abundant renewable resources.2 The deep divisions among the Panguna landowner groups, evidenced by the most recent violence at the Panguna mine-site, will continue to plague mine redevelopment efforts, further justifying the PNG Government’s argument that Bougainville’s current lack of economic independence renders it unfit for political independence in the near term.
1 Mining company’s equipment targeted in Panguna arson attack, Radio New Zealand, 13/9/2026.
2 Non-Mining Revenue Sources for Bougainville, Nesian Nomad, 1/2/2020.