UPDATE 1-Ok Tedi mine strike nears fourth day-mine operator
(Updates with company quote)
SYDNEY, March 13 (Reuters) - Striking workers at Papua New Guinea's Ok Tedi copper mine were locked in talks with management and government arbitrators on Thursday over a three-day old wage dispute that is costing $10-$12 million a day in lost production.
Mining, milling and shipping at the mine, which supplies 1.1 percent of the already-tight global copper concentrate market, came to a halt on Tuesday when workers walked off the job.
The talks between the Allied Workers Union, mine operator Ok Tedi Mining Ltd and the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations were trying to resolve issues put forward by workers, who want a 100 percent wage hike, a mine spokeswoman said
"Industrial relations officers are still meeting with the union and management but so far no one has gone back to work," she said.
The mine's managing director, Alan Breen, said in a statement early on Wednesday that he had hoped the strike would end within 24 hours.
The strike was in reaction to a decision by management to exclude the general workforce from a 100 percent pay increase awarded to the mine's engineers in a bid to retain them after a number were lost to better paying jobs overseas.
Ok Tedi is 52 percent-owned by PNG Sustainable Development Program Ltd, an independent firm set up to fund development projects in Papua New Guinea that acquired its shares from BHP Billiton Plc/Ltd (BHP.AX) (BLT.L) following environmental concerns over waste discharged into local rivers.
PNG's government has a 30 percent stake and Canada's Inmet Mining Corp (IMN.TO) 18 percent.
Inmet said on Wednesday that the strike would reduce its copper production by 85 tonnes and gold output by 330 ounces for each day it continued.
The mine produced 169,184 tonnes of copper in concentrate in 2007. Its gold production was 498,790 ounces last year.
The mine accounts for around 10 percent of the impoverished South Pacific nation's gross national product and 20 percent of total exports. (Reporting by James Regan, editing by Richard Pullin)
