New Ivanhoe Mines CEO interview by Luke Distelhorst
Thursday, 18 May 2006
Mongolia Neweurasia's Luke Distelhorst had the opportunity to interview the brand new CEO and President of Ivanhoe Mines, John Macken, and Executive Vice President of Corporate
Affairs, Layton Croft, on the current developments of the company. Last weeks the results of the company were presented that wer maybe not as good as hoped for, but not beyond expactation. The news however was topped by unexpected news from Mongolia, where suddenly the State Great Khural (Parliament) accepted a law on gold and copper mining windfall taxes. Both the sudden passing and the high tax rates of the law shook up the international mining and investment community. In this interview the new CEO, who has replaced Robert Friedland, gives his view on the current events, how it came to the present situation and how to move forward.
The contents of this interview are the property of Luke
Distelhorst and mongolia.neweurasia.net, it may not be reproduced in
full without the written consent of the author.
All quotations from this interview must be attributed as
follows: “‘Interview With John Macken, CEO and President of Ivanhoe
Mines, and Layton Croft, Executive Vice President of Corporate
Affairs,’ an Interview by Luke Distelhorst, http://mongolia.neweurasia.net”
Robert Friedland was the rock star here not too long ago. He brought in
all of this foreign investment and then the tables are turned on him.
He won awards for brining foreign investment to Mongolia, and then they
said he was stealing everything.
...
[w]e had the courage to come here when everyone else was leaving. We
bought the exploration rights to OT and started sinking money into it.
We’ve spent $370 million dollars, it is the most money that has been
spent in Mongolia in 25 years, and we are not crying to anyone for a
stability agreement or trying to get our money back.
...
So you go back to “can Mongolians do it,” and I say Mongolians will do
it! They are already doing it; they are sinking shafts. So it comes
back to is there a fair distribution of value that comes from that
mine. Is it 50-50, 45-55 or you keep 68% and I take 32%? That is what
it comes down to in the end. You know, what we are doing here is the
egg has just been laid, and we are already plucking the goose. It is
killing an industry before it starts, and the rhetoric you hear of
living it in the ground just doesn’t hold up.
A site with information related to the environment and buddhism. There is a section on the Northern Buddhist Conference on Ecology and Development. www.buddhistecology.org/
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