Copper Mine in Laos - Assignment Example

Copper Mines in Phonsavan Lao Student’s Name Code & Course Professor’s Name University City Date Feed Specification Phonsavan is a small town in the country of Lao with a demographic composition of about 57000 people (Lao 2012). The economy of Lao has in the present been seen to be rising at a high rate due to high demand of its precious metals considering the town’s availability of good infrastructure (Lao 2012). The government of Laos has an agreement with the mining companies that regulates them to mine within a reach of 2600 kilometres. The country has a mining law in place which provides the government with the power to provide mining licences to the operating companies and continue to monitor and inspect the mining activities in Laos (Peachey 2016,p 11). Through the geology department, the government manages to negotiate for licences and mining agreements and also take part in investment of infrastructure that eases the mining activities. The government realized the benefits of mining for Laos in consideration with its undeveloped resources especially copper deposit at the town of Phonsavan thus take part in supporting the mining sector through promoting both local and foreign investment. Satisfaction of customers is part of company’s core values of operation. The companies operating in mining of copper in Phonsavan has high standards of customer service relations; the government through its geology department has continued to support them in increasing investment. The town enjoys good infrastructure such as access to electricity and good roads. The companies have to set correct and reliable corporate social responsibilities to manage the growing competition in the mining sector at the same time ensure their customers are well taken care of. The corporate social responsibilities set by the mining industry will ensure the prices offered to the customers are favourable to avoid overpricing, this thus ensures there is existence of trust between the company and the customers. Provision of quality services should be also the main objective of the company for the customers to feel safe (Hatcher 2015). The ability of customers to be satisfied is in most cases influenced by the value of services provided to the customers by the company. As the company aims to maximize its profits and minimize on its cost, safety operations must be considered. The government of Lao has gone through the issuance of mining licence ensures there is an agreement to maintain safety of the people both working for the company and those in the surrounding area. Proper control and monitoring by the government through the department of geology is done to all the mines in the country including the one at Phonsavan town (Hatcher 2015). The company has to commit itself to controlling and reducing the work- place injuries which are unacceptable. It is the responsibility of the company to maintain proper measure to ensure control but also individuals should be in charge of maintaining their own safety. Elimination of any kind of hazard related to the company’s work is important for the people working in the company and others. Proper governance of the safety conditions is not a one side activity (Phommakaysone & Lao 2012, p 36). Ability to cooperate with the community and the authority in charge of the town is one major boost towards realization of proper operation that is safe to both workers in the company, customers and other people close to the operations of the company. The activities engaged by the mining company affects its reputation and thus it’s important to maintain public support and social licence of mining operation. The management committee can be set by the company which include the company’s top officials, the government representatives, and the members of the community. The committee should be able to gather reliable information from the workers and other stakeholders on what is required to provide proper and safety operations in its activities. The committee visits the place of mining and talks to the workers and the management to find out the hazardous challenges that they face which might be risky to them. The PanAust Company should clearly define its objectives to include the safety operations program. The purpose of the company towards the workers should be that all workers in the company should go home at the end of the day safe and health as they were before (Lao 2012). The company should lay down proper health policies which guide it and all the workers and the management should commit themselves towards realizing the achievement of the safety policies every day. The company’s leadership should be at the forefront of ensuring safety conditions are well maintained, this can be through proper explaining the importance of this policies to all the stakeholders and in effect lead by example because what the leaders value and believe in and how they behave dictates the safety culture. Safety operation does not depend on the leaders alone but also the general public. Individuals should be in a position to check on his or her safety and those of their friends, employees should courageous enough to behave as leaders in their respective fields in the bid to maintain safety standards. During mining process, the company takes responsibility of providing safety operation in the mining process (Tucci et al., 2014). Proper communication should avail to all the workers and those who are close to the mining area concerning the hazards associated with the mining process and how to control them. Methods of avoiding risks associated with these hazards have to be well communicated. Opportunities for learning basic skills to control the risks should be given to the employees. The company should ensure that the skills are well mastered and adhered to during working areas; this can be done through monitoring and reinforcement of the skills and knowledge to the job being done. Environmental health is crucial to the proper performance of the mining company. As the company aims to reduce on expenditure at the same time increasing profit, the health of the surrounding environment has to be clean. Mining of copper is prone pollution of the general environment, thus in response the company has to improve the measures to ensure minimal or no pollution of the environment in the process of mining (Tucci et al., 2014). The licensing and contractual agreement shows the measures that the company takes into consideration to save the environment. As one of the top contributors of the country’s economy, mining has become a more controversial sector. The risks associated by mining in the town has continuously increased over the past affecting both the investors, employees and the general public. Given the extent of degradation caused by mining process, it is important that every company engaging in mining should consider measures of reducing these problems (Bennett, Crnkovic &Walker 2012). The company thus has to maintain policies that they can implement to help them in process of mining; among them being evaluation of the environment and planning for the best available alternatives to reduce any factor that may negatively affect the environment (Edwards 2014, p 64). The environmental and social impact assessment and management committee formed by the department of geology has for long time described regulations to be followed by the companies involved in mining; the rules were updated last in the year 2010 (Lao 2012). Product specification Customer requirements Customer requirements of the company’s products are important element to quality production. However, it is not an easy aspect to deal with as many may think customer requirements is achieved through asking the customers what they want. The design team often produce products that customers do not want; the information given from the customers may not show the needs of the entire customers as there is continuous demand of the product in the market. During production process, the design team in charge of the project applies information given from the sources such as commercial specifications, inferences from other products deployment studies and other studies that are external. In terms of copper mining, the company has to meet the requirements of the customers both in the town of Phonsavan and outside. The copper mined has to be made in a way that it will meet all the requirements by the existing and potential customers in the long term. The management of the company has a team in the department which deals with acquisition of information from various sources to produce products that are relevant and highly demanded by the customers (Tucci et al., 2014). The information provided by the team is improved by the company’s technical team on mining which ensures that the products are best produced to meet the customer’s requirements. Through the provided information, the company gets to know the needs of the customers and know the market trends of the copper mined from the town. Market evaluation The market drive of a given product depends on both the supply and the demand of the product. The product supplied has to in demand by a certain group of people who are willing and able to buy the product seen to be suiting their requirement. The market thus involves two players that is; the suppliers/producers of the product and the customers in demand of the product. The two market participant that’s the customer and the supplier dictates the cycle that occurs in the market leading to continuous production. In this paper, the customers include all those people who are interested in buying copper or copper related products, while the supplier is an Australian company known as PanAust based in the town of Phonsavan at the centre of Lao. The customers are the buyers of the copper products produced by PanAust Company in Phonsavan town and beyond. The customer base involves both the government agencies and private individuals in need of the copper products from across the world. Customers behave differently in the market due to prices, quality and the urgency in demand of the product (Kallio 2014). Competition of companies producing same products also makes the customers to behave differently. Understanding the trends in behaviour of customers in the market is vital for the success of PanAust Company and the entire success of the town. The demand of the customers depends on the quality of the copper produced by PanAust limited company. The success of the town depends on the marketability of the mines as its main economic activity. Another part to consider in the success of a company is to look into the needs of the suppliers. Suppliers are the individuals or groups who provide the needed goods to the customer. in the case of PanAust company, the major supplier is the company itself which mines the copper mineral and avail to its customers to be able to buy (Sverdrup, Ragnarsdottir & koca 2015). Other suppliers are involved as they provide adequate facilities to the company including machines for work, human labour who works in the company and the Laos government which provide adequate facilities to ensure smooth running of the company. The suppliers just like the customers behave differently depending on the available circumstances on the ground. They may increase their supply if the prices being offered increase or reduce in the case of poor pricing. Thus the company has to be in constant monitoring of the change in the supply market in order to work with the changes to maintain existing customers. The supply of human labour requires good remuneration and proper working conditions which act as motivator to improve its supply. PanAust Company as a supplier to its customers requires cooperation and good infrastructure like roads that are accessible to the customers. The town’s setting has favoured the company as its infrastructure is beyond doubt, adequate for the miners. Market forecast The production of copper has to be overlooked in the future to understand the trends in the market for copper mining (Northey et al., 2014). The forecast is both on copper and its products as they are interrelated. The international copper study group (ICSG) which was established back in 1992 by major copper mining countries has the mandate to regulate copper mining with consideration of the future market trends for the product (Sverdrup, Ragnarsdottir & koca 2014). Considering that copper is a metal and thus cannot use as food, the need for reusing the metal is adopted worldwide. The high demand of copper in many countries has led to the escalation of prices of copper, the increased prices in effect is predicted to lead to over-exploitation of the mineral leading to its low abundance in the world (Mikesell 2013). The prices are projected to increase even further due to increase in developmental activities. Plant capacity Phonsavan town is said to enjoy a large copper deposit in Lao. The increasing demand of the metals produced in the town means that the company needs to have a large plant to cope with the mining. PanAust limited enjoys large capacity as it controls about area of 2636km square of mineral and employs more than 2000 people. The company should forecast more on improving its operation base in exploration of other metals which are highly demand by other countries. This will be able to manage the demand arising of the metals. The plant is considered to be large in capacity in Lao but it’s not up to the capacity of an international plant considering its employee capacity of 2000. The company also lacks branches to other areas to be at the rank of an international mining company with large plant capacity. Though the company should increase its capacity, it is important to consider the shortcomings of these expansions as the y reduce the economic proficiency PanAust limited company in the long term. References Lao, P.D.R., 2012. Concessions. Phommakaysone, K. and Lao, P.D.R., 2012. The Geology and Mineral Resources of Lao PDR. Dept Geol Miner Resour, Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy, Lao PDR, pdf, pp.1-26. Tucci, A., Sayavongkhamdy, T., Chang, N. and Souksavatdy, V., 2014. Ancient copper mining in Laos: heterachies, incipient states or post-state anarchists. Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology, 2(2), pp.01-15. Hatcher, P., 2015. Local Communities and Multilateral Safeguards: The Mining Regime of Lao PDR. http://paperroom.ipsa.org/app/webroot/papers/paper_9222.pdf Mikesell, R.F., 2013. The world copper industry: structure and economic analysis. Routledge. Kallio, M., 2014. Effects of Mining and Hydropower on Metals in Surface Waters: Case: Nam Ngum. https://theseus32-kk.lib.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/75687/Marko_Kallio_Thesis_Final_Returned.pdf?sequence=1 Edwards, K., 2014. Laos Gives PanAust Perfect Kick-start. Engineering and Mining Journal, 215(6), p.64. Peachey, T., 2016. The UXO Sector in Laos. Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction, 20(2), p.11. Northey, S., Mohr, S., Mudd, G.M., Weng, Z. and Giurco, D., 2014. Modelling future copper ore grade decline based on a detailed assessment of copper resources and mining. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 83, pp.190-201. Bennett, D., Crnkovic, I. and Walker, P., 2012. Recent Process Developments at the Phu Kham Copper-Gold Concentrator, Laos. In 11th Mill Operators' Conference (pp. 257-272). Sverdrup, H.U., Ragnarsdottir, K.V. and Koca, D., 2014. On modelling the global copper mining rates, market supply, copper price and the end of copper reserves. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 87, pp.158-174. Sverdrup, H.U., Ragnarsdottir, K.V. and Koca, D., 2015. Aluminium for the future: Modelling the global production, market supply, demand, price and long term development of the global reserves. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 103, pp.139-154. Read More