Senator Conroy: The following answer has been provided by the Minister for Trade to the honourable senator's question: (1) In December 2006, EFIC provided a USD 43 million direct loan for the construction of a copper project in Zambia by Lumwana Mining Company Limited (LMC). EFIC provided an additional loan of USD 9.45 million and Political Risk Insurance to commercial banks (USD 90 million) and to a hedge bank (USD 150 million) in relation to the project. As part of the copper ore mining process for this project, uranium was also extracted. Under the terms of the EFIC loan and PRI documentation, LMC was unable to exploit, process, sell, export, transfer or otherwise dispose of uranium bearing material without EFIC's consent. A request was made by LMC to the lenders and their insurers to seek approval to process the uranium. Prior to a response being given to the request, on 10 March 2010 the EFIC loans were repaid by LMC and PRI policies cancelled by the banks. (2) The AUMS transactions were considered to be Category B transactions in line with the OECD Common Approaches and the Equator Principles. This transaction related to AUMS's provision of underground mining services to established and operating mining projects for periods of up to three years. EFIC categorised AUMS's provision of those services, it did not categorise the existing projects themselves. As stated in the response to part 4 of QoN 345 of 13 December 2010 regarding EFIC's classification of the transaction as Category B, EFIC's assessment included a review of publicly available information on its client's customer, Newmont Ghana Gold Limited and its Ahafo Gold Mine Project. That information indicated that the project was assessed and funded by the commercial arm of the IFC and that the IFC financing of the project was subject to the mine operator meeting stringent environmental and social standards. (3) No. EFIC understands that these issues are related to the operator and owner of the Ahafo Gold Mine, Newmont Ghana Gold Limited, and EFIC has no relationship with that company. (4) As stated in the response to QoN 346, EFIC assessed the activity of its client using the IFC Performance Standards as the benchmark. EFIC's review concluded that the project's environmental and social impacts were effectively contained within the site boundaries. The project was also located within an existing industrial estate. As such, EFIC categorised the transaction as Category B. (5) EFIC's assessments of potential transactions are done on a case-by-case basis. A project's environmental and social impacts are determined by many factors. It is therefore difficult to predict a particular classification for all underground mining operations or ammonium nitrate plants whether in Australia or elsewhere in the world. (6) EFIC has had discussions on establishing a stakeholder forum with stakeholders on environmental and social issues (Jubilee Australia and Oxfam Australia). EFIC hopes to establish the forum and hold the first meeting later this year.