El Salvador lawmakers overturn national mining ban
The legislation will grant the Salvadoran government sole authority over mining activities within the country's land and maritime territory.
GeoProMining (GPM), a diversified international mining group, held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new gold extraction line at the Ararat gold extraction plant attended by the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan. The unique Albion gold ore processing technology is part of a major capital expenditure program by GPM to upgrade its Armenian assets, with the aim of improving efficiency while maintaining high environmental protection standards. The total investment into GPM Gold currently planned for the next three years is approximately USD 100 million. To date, GPM has invested approximately USD 260 million into the acquisition and modernization of its Armenian assets.
The Albion technology, developed by Xstrata Technology (Australia) with the support of Core Process Engineering (Australia) is expected to enable the company to significantly increase gold extraction from sulphide-bearing ore from the Zod mine and increase its gold production to an estimated 150,000 oz per annum. The modernization program adheres to strict international environmental standards. This has been confirmed by leading experts in environmental impact assessment including Fraser Alexander (South Africa), Epoch (South Africa) and Digby Wells Environment (South Africa). GPM has also hired Snowden (Australia) to develop an efficient mining plan for the Zod mine. All necessary licenses and permits from the Armenian authorities are currently being processed in compliance with the local regulations. GPM plans to complete this investment project by 2013.
At the groundbreaking ceremony GPM CEO Roman Khudoley said: “It is an honour to begin construction of this new workshop at the Ararat gold extraction plant in the presence of President Sargsyan and other senior governmental officials. It is of strategic importance to us that our business growth takes into account the interests of all stakeholders. We are confident that our investments in increasing the efficiency and capacity of our assets will support the socio-economic development of the regions and communities in which we operate.
Our team has a wealth of experience in successfully implementing complex mining industry projects. We are confident that their professionalism and experience, combined with the leading international experts we have brought in, will help us to successfully complete the project on time and on budget.”
The planned investments in the Ararat plant are expected to enable GPM Gold to process higher volumes of ore from the Zod mine without the need to construct any additional processing facilities at the mine itself. Based on thorough testing of ore from the Zod mine GPM decided to implement a solution that will significantly increase the gold extraction coefficient. The company is also investing into minimising its impact on the environment. The Albion technology, which is capable of efficiently extracting gold from sulphide-bearing ore, was first successfully implemented in the Dominican Republic, and the new workshop inArmeniawill be the second to adopt this technology.
