Project Sepik and Jubilee Australia Research Centre engaged in a complaint process against PanAust for more than 4 years, with a complaint to the OECD Australian National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct, asserting that PanAust had breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Project Sepik and Jubilee Australia had asked the company to release a key document as early as 2021. The Australian National Contact Point recommended in October 2023 that it be released.

Finally, more than 3 years later, PanAust released the document to the public.

The document is a modelling of what would happen if the combined tailings and hydroelectric facility were to collapse.

The company’s own document states that if the dam were to collapse, under some conditions, 23 villages could be flooded is less than 4 days.1 For three of these villages, the wave of floodwater could be more than 20 metres high and reach them in less than 10 hours.2

The company did not even conduct modelling for the many villages along the Sepik River beyond these 33 villages, despite the report acknowledging that tailings would likely flow to the ocean, as occurred in the case of the Samarco dam.  

 The company’s own document states that: 

‘In the case of the recent incident at the Samarco operation in Brazil, tailings were transported a distance of 650km to the ocean. The [Frieda River Hydroelectric Project] is substantially larger than the Samarco [Tailings Storage Facility] and has significantly higher potential release volumes and peak flows; it therefore can be expected that some of the tailings would similarly flow to the ocean. 

 Although the breach flood will be diluted once it reaches the Sepik River, suspended solids will still be transported in the river and deposited along the river banks. The reactive tailings and waste, both in the river and deposited across the inundation extents, will represent a very significant long-term source of contamination in the region.’ 

Source: PanAust’s commissioned report, SRK Consulting, Frieda River Hydroelectric Project Selection Phase Study Dam Break Assessment, July 2018, at 14, available at https://www.friedariver.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Frieda-River-Hydroelectric-Project-Dam-Risk-Assessment-SRK-2024-2018-English.pdf)

The document doesn’t even model what will happen for any of the villages after Swagup on the Sepik River – which is not even half way along the River. The river flows to the sea – the impacts will not just stop at Swagup. Despite this, the company has not seen fit to conduct modelling past Swagup for any of the other villages downstream along the Sepik River, and the impacts that will be felt by these communities. This is a significant oversight. 

Excerpts from the report below.