- Numa Numa has agreements with the landowners to develop the Panguna Mine, which contains an estimated $100 billion in copper and gold reserves based on current market prices.
- The company’s business plan supports, but does not depend on, Bougainville’s independence.
- A diverse set of projects in mining, lime production, and energy infrastructure positions the company for multi-stream revenue generation.
- Numa Numa’s leadership has extensive experience in Bougainville, the development of large-scale infrastructure ventures in remote locations, and worldwide capital markets.
- Global economic trends affecting the uses of gold and copper and rising demand for both ores place the company in a strong position.
Numa Numa Resources is a mining and infrastructure development company focused on unlocking transformational opportunities in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, where the company is headquartered and where its management has lived and worked for 10 years.
Bougainville, a resource-rich archipelago in the South Pacific, is perhaps best known as the home of the Panguna Mine. Developed by Rio Tinto, the Panguna Mine was the largest open cut copper and gold mine in the world when it operated from 1972 to 1989 before being shuttered due to a civil war, called “the Crisis,” between Bougainville and its parent government Papua New Guinea. In 2001, the Bougainville Peace Agreement ended the war and awarded Bougainville limited autonomy, including its own constitution, by which ownership of the mine reverted to its customary landowners. A majority of the Panguna Mine’s copper, gold, and silver ore resources remain within its walls, making the fully explored and developed Panguna Mine one of the largest ore bodies in the world, today worth approximately $100 billion. Most geologists who have studied Bougainville believe that other nearby locations such as Mainoki and Karato are highly prospective and may contain ore deposits similar in size and scale to those of the Panguna Mine.
Numa Numa’s fundamental strength is the relationships it has developed over the years with the landowners in the Panguna, Mainoki, and Karato resource areas.
Pursuant to newly executed written agreements, Numa Numa has formed and now owns a stake in three new corporate entities that will own and develop, with the Panguna, Mainoki, and Karato landowners, their respective resources as partners pursuant to the laws and regulations of Bougainville. One entity has been established for Panguna, one for Mainoki, and one for Karato. Each entity is co-owned with the landowners of those respective areas. Each owns all the landowners’ resource rights to that area, and each entity is to be managed by a joint company/landowner team led by Numa Numa. Due to Bougainville’s constitution and law, each of these entities therefore effectively controls the monetization of the resources in its area. In Bougainville, the landowners—not the government—own the resources. With the Panguna, Mainoki, and Karato landowners as its contractual partners, Numa Numa now expects to prosper significantly in its mining endeavors in Bougainville.
Numa Numa has a contractual agreement to develop the Panguna Mine executed both with the Panguna Mine Landowner Clan Chiefs—the governmentally accepted owners of the Panguna Mine—and the government of Bougainville and President Ishmael Toroama, along with its rights to the exploration licenses regarding Mainoki and Karato for which it has applied and is awaiting approval. The company will be pursuing all such rights through those corporate entities. Numa Numa, together with its landowner partners, fully expect that these entities will ultimately be issued licenses and approvals by the government to legally pursue mining activities in their respective areas. Together with the Panguna, Mainoki, and Karato landowners, Numa Numa then intends to partner with mining companies who are now being invited to explore, fully develop, and ultimately construct and operate these prime Bougainville mining opportunities.
These new assets distinguish Numa Numa from any other aspirants in Bougainville. No one has any similar entities or relationships with any landowners, even in non-prospective areas, and certainly nothing in Panguna, Mainoki, and Karato, described as the three most important mining areas of Bougainville. That said, Numa Numa also continues to develop a road system in Bougainville’s roadless mining region, a limestone quarry and calcination facility to supply lime to all of Bougainville’s mining operations, and an integrated electric utility to supply electricity to Bougainville.
Metals Market Opportunity
The Panguna Mine contains one of the world’s largest copper and gold ore bodies, but the size of the mine’s resource is only one of its favorable characteristics. The amount of resources in the Panguna Mine are beyond dispute. The mine’s reserves are proven, while most of the world’s major deposits waiting to be mined are not. The Panguna Mine itself is highly accessible and comes with developed infrastructure; much of the roads, port facilities, and other infrastructure built to service the Panguna Mine remain largely intact.
The Panguna Mine’s two most important metals—gold and copper—are, at current market prices, almost equally valuable. Together, the mine’s proven gold and copper resources underscore its role as a global tier-one asset.
Panguna’s 547.15 metric tons of known gold reserves equate to nearly 1% of all global reserves, with value estimates exceeding $40 billion. Given the growing interest by many nations in denominating their trade balances in something other than U.S. dollars, the price of gold has increased dramatically over the last two years, and no end is in sight.
As for copper, the global transition to electrification is triggering historic demand for it, yet the supply pipeline is critically constrained. According to RBC Dominion Securities, just four new large-scale copper mines are in development globally, while demand requires at least one new mine per year through 2035. The Panguna Mine’s copper reserves total 5.3 million metric tons—equal to roughly 70% of Canada’s total reserves—placing it in the same league as major copper-producing nations. With ore grades declining and permitting delays mounting worldwide, the Panguna Mine—let alone Mainoki and Karato when they are explored—is uniquely positioned to help fill the world’s looming copper supply gap.
Independence Requires Numa Numa Rebuilding the Panguna Mine—and Diplomacy
Bougainville is currently an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea, but the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement provided Bougainville with the right, within 20 years, to conduct an independence referendum. During this period, Bougainville’s current president, Ishmael Toroama, was the lead proponent in advocating Bougainvillean independence. In 2019, the independence referendum, in which registered Bougainvilleans were asked whether they wished to remain part of Papua New Guinea or become citizens of a new, independent country, was held, and 97.7% of the population chose independence. The next year, Ishmael Toroama was elected President of Bougainville.
Numa Numa assisted Toroama in both his independence initiatives and his presidential election. Both Numa Numa and President Toroama, as well as the great majority of Bougainvilleans, understand that Bougainvillean independence depends on having the means to pay for its cost.
Simply put, Bougainvillean independence depends on rebuilding the Panguna Mine. Bougainvilleans know that they cannot do it themselves. The people understand that, and identify Numa Numa’s business plan for rebuilding the Panguna Mine, as well as the support they assume will come from its Western affiliations—most of the company’s shareholders are either American or Canadian—as the key to not only their prosperity, but their freedom as well.
Bougainvilleans also back Numa Numa’s business plan because they fear the alternative: China, which covets not only Bougainville’s gold and copper, but its strategic location together with its deepwater port at Loloho, the best deepwater port in the Third Island Chain.
On the front line in the Western Pacific’s rising tensions between China and the U.S., Bougainvilleans far prefer an alliance with their tradition Western allies to a takeover by China. Numa Numa’s ongoing diplomatic engagement, including arranging recent visits to Washington D.C. with President Ishmael Toroama, positions the company as both an economic and strategic partner in shaping Bougainville’s future.
Leadership Team
John D. Kuhns, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, founded Numa Numa Resources and has led the company since its formation in 2016. He previously founded China Hydroelectric Corporation, the largest foreign-owned electric power company in China, and listed the company on the NYSE. He has taken five other infrastructure and energy companies from initial concept to public listings and has owned and managed three Wall Street investment firms. He holds degrees from Georgetown University, the University of Chicago, and Harvard Business School and is also the author of four published novels.
Shadron L. Stastney, Vice-Chairman & Chief Operating Officer, joined Numa Numa Resources as a consultant in 2022 and became its Vice-Chairman and Chief Operating Officer in 2025. He was previously the co-founder of Vicis Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund with peak assets of $6.8 billion. Before that, he was a Director and Head of the Hedging and Monetization Group at Credit Suisse First Boston, and a corporate attorney at Cravath, Swaine and Moore. He received his JD from Yale Law School and his BA from the University of North Dakota.
Anthony Dixon, Director, founded and was the CEO of Helios Renewable Energy Limited, a solar energy developer, and Metanoia, a sustainability auditor. He is also the Founder and Chairman of The Alliance for Sustainable Schools. His previous roles include CEO of ASB Biodiesel, Senior Advisor for Project Development in Asia with Canadian Solar; a Director of China Hydroelectric Corporation; Chief Operating Officer of ZEDFactory; and a Director of the Solar Electric Light Company. He was a Managing Director and Head of UK Capital Markets with Citigroup Global Markets; a Vice President with Salomon Brothers; and Director of Nikko Salomon Smith Barney in Tokyo, where he co-headed the firms’ securitization business. He holds a first-class honors degree in physics and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Western Australia, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a master’s degree in renewable energy engineering from Imperial College, London.
Mary E. Fellows, Director, has more than two decades of experience in renewable energy and infrastructure development. She previously served as EVP, Chief Compliance Officer, and Corporate Secretary of China Hydroelectric Corporation, and held leadership roles at GenSelf Corporation, Solar Electric Light Company, and New World Power Corporation. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Teikyo Post University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s AMP program.
Ian Smith, Director, is a mining engineering honors graduate from the University of Queensland, Australia. He has 60 years’ experience in the international mining industry, spanning functions including corporate management, operations, project management and engineering. Significantly, he was involved with the development of Bougainville’s Panguna copper-gold mine, from exploration, pre-production and startup to full production. The Panguna Mine at the time was the largest open pit copper-gold mine in the world. He was mine manager until he took another corporate responsibility in Mexico to develop the 72,000tpd La Caridad open pit copper mine. Additional operations and engineering experience include the 2,500 tpd CIL gold project in Uruguay and mining projects in Asia, South America, Africa, and the Pacific Rim.
Lawrence Queen, Senior Consulting Geologist, has over 35 years of experience in global mineral exploration, including five years as Principal Economic Geologist for the Geological Survey of Papua New Guinea. He holds a BSc from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and an MSc from the University of Alaska and is a long-standing member of both the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Australian Institute of Geoscientists.
Tete Omas, Manager, Lakeville Mines, oversees operations at Numa Numa’s mining subsidiary and brings deep, hands-on experience in gold mining and equipment fabrication. A second-generation miner, he previously served in the PNG Mineral Resource Authority’s Small Scale Mining Branch and began his career working on his family’s mining lease at Mt. Kaindi.
Seeking Investors: Intention to Go Public Soon
Numa Numa is seeking investors—strategic and financial—to be partners in its world-class, resource-rich Bougainville opportunity. The company’s goal is to not only be the leading mining entity in Bougainville, but to become the country’s leading commercial enterprise as well.
Numa Numa is currently a privately held corporation but is exploring means of going public so as to list its shares on one or more international stock exchanges and provide its shareholders with liquidity.
For more information, visit the company’s website at https://numanumaresources.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Numa Numa are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/NUMA
