PNG's Minister for Commerce and Industry, Wera Mori, said a portion of Barrick and Zijin's stakes would be given to the national and provincial governments and to landowners.

"We would like to see the mine to continue, but this time to be structured in such a way with a lot more national interest in it," Mori told Reuters in an interview in Sydney.

(Reporting by Jonathan Barrett in SYDNEY; additional reporting by Mell Chun; editing by Richard Pullin)