2007 Financial statements
Note 47 - Bougainville Copper Limited ('BCL')
The Panguna mine remains shut down. Access to the mine site has not been possible and an accurate assessment of the condition of the assets cannot be determined. Considerable funding would be required to recommence operations to the level which applied at the time of the mine's closure in 1989 and these funding requirements cannot be forecast accurately. The directors do not have access to reliable, verifiable or objective information on BCL and the directors have therefore decided to exclude BCL information from the financial statements. BCL reported a net profit of US$1 million for the financial year (2006: US$1 million). This is based upon actual transactions for the financial year. The aggregate amount of capital and reserves reported by BCL as at 31 December 2007 was US$147 million (2006: US$129 million). The Group owns 214,887,966 shares in BCL, representing 53.6 per cent of the issued share capital. The investment of US$195 million was fully provided against in 1991. At 31 December 2007, the number of shares in BCL held by the Group, multiplied by the share price, resulted in an amount of US$281 million (2006: US$119 million).