El Salvador president proposes bill to overturn metals mining ban
In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to ban forms of metals mining.
Australian Laguna Resources (ASX: LRC) has submitted an environmental impact study (EIS) to Chile’s Environment Ministry’s evaluation service for its US$300 million Arqueros gold-silver project in the north of the country.
The company plans to start developing the project in January 2013, immediately after receiving environmental approval. Construction is expected to take one year.
The project, which will have a useful life of 13 years, aims to produce around 250 kg/year of gold and 100 tons/year of silver, with a horizon of 15 years.
The Arqueros deposit was discovered in 1981 and between 2000 and 2004, underground mining operations extracted around 288,000 ounces of gold equivalent.
Laguna Resources commenced field activities in November 2009 and so far it has completed 11,500 metres of drilling, which in addition to over 100,000 metres of production drilling has allowed the company to define a mineral resource in excess of over one million gold equivalent ounces.
This could be mined by open-cut methods and processed using traditional agitation leaching with cyanide, and will be the focus of development activities.
