Lihir Island is the home of one of the largest gold mines in the world set in the Lihir Island group on the eastern side of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The mine was owned by Newcrest until Newcrest was purchased by Newmont.

This project was for the mess hall kitchen servicing 8,000 meals per day.
The mess hall could not be closed so it was programmed to be done in 5 stages which included 2 x 200m2 forklift-accessible freezers.

McLeod’s Epoxy coatings had to fly in and fly out for each stage from Cairns and Brisbane.

The specifications for the project include:

• Encapsulate the work zone to ensure no contamination of food preparation and operational kitchen area’s immediately surrounding work zone
• Remove old vinyl from the floor
• Dry out floor
• Grind concrete to a suitably prepared surface
• Install Hicrete self-leveling epoxy system with coving and nonslip media broadcast throughout followed by an epoxy coating over broadcast media

The strip down of the kitchen and kitchen reinstatement of each stage was completed by the mine.

All equipment and materials were sent to Lihir Island via shipping container on sea freight in advance of commencement, the equipment used for this project was out of Australia for 5 months including transport back from Lihir and then Brisbane back up to Cairns.

All staff were required to complete all Newmont inductions, police checks, physicals, work visas, and valid passports.