Financial woes continue for gold-miners Newcrest. The company has been forced to axe hundreds of local and Australian workers from plants in Papua New Guinea, where half its operations are located.

Newcrest’s share price took a dive again yesterday, dropping from a high of $30 eight months ago down to just $9.53 today. The financial loss has lead to the decision to cut at least 150 workers, including some fly-in fly-out contractors, from the Lihir gold operation.

General operations manager Karl Spaleck said “with the process plant upgrade behind us, we are now working on achieving reliable, predictable performance” which will include “a bigger focus on using the stockpiled ore, which is an asset that has been building for a number of years”.

Newcrest is blaming the current gold price, reportedly the lowest in 30 years, for the job cuts and the need to reduce overall costs by 20 to 30 per cent.