Boyd, Roosen, Quartermain: It takes grit, invention, luck to make the big time
Mining industry legends discuss the backstories on their multibillion-dollar successes.
Despite suffering a major setback for its flagship project last month, Gabriel Resources (TSX: GBU) hasn’t given up on its massive gold mine in Rosia Montana, Romania.
A Romanian parliamentary committee rejection of the gold and silver project in November has put the project back several more months, upping costs further with Gabriel now saying to build the gold mine it will need $1.5 billion.
The Canadian miner has already spent more than $500m on the project in a region of Transylvania where mining dates back to the first century, since it first acquired the concession in the late 1990s amid fierce opposition from environmental groups.
Existing open pit at Rosia Montana mined by Romanian state-owned company during Soviet times
While protests and marches organized by environmental activists across Europe has definitely galvanized opposition to the project – which will be Europe’s largest if it goes ahead – the proposed Rosia Montana mine may in the end be torpedoed by archeologists.
A British report commissioned by Romania’s ministry of culture and funded by a not-for-profit organisation, Pro Patrimonio, which was kept under wraps for three years by the Bucharest government, has now been made public.
According to the The Independent the report deems Rosia Montana worthy of consideration as a Unesco world heritage site and that its galleries are “the most extensive and most important underground Roman gold mine known anywhere”:
In 2010, the town’s mayor, Eugen Furdui, admitted: “If Rosia Montana were added to the Unesco world heritage list, that would automatically mean that mining [could not] go through. And we want this mining project to be carried on.”
The report’s authors – Andrew Wilson and David Mattingly, professors of Roman archaeology at Oxford University and Leicester University respectively, and Mike Dawson, director of archaeology at the environmental consultancy firm CgMs – travelled to the site and were impressed by what they found.
“The key thing we were asked to do was to evaluate the site and see if it was a worthy consideration to be a Unesco world heritage site,” Professor Dawson said. “Our opinion is that it has a very high status.”
The villages around Rosia Montana have seen better days
The report promoting Rosia Montana as a World Heritage site also has its critics.
British archaeologist David Jennings, director of the York Archaeological Trust and a former director of Oxford Archaeology, an institution involved in the research program of the Rosia Montana heritage as early as since 2008 found three main flaws in the arguments set out by the Oxford professors and CgMs:
“An exaggeration of the importance of the site; The lack of appreciation of the precarious state of preservation and precarious integrity of many heritage-related objectives due to intense exploitation, especially over the last 250 years, which had a huge impact on the earlier phases of the heritage and left behind a largely non-rehabilitated and massive polluted environment; The lack of a professional opinion on the amount of the costs entailed by a full conservation program (estimated at around 200-300 million dollars).”
Gabriel, which owns 80% of the project with Romania holding the remainder, construction plans include rehabilitation of Romania’s state owned company’s excavations on the site.
The Toronto-based company has set aside $160 million in environmental guarantees and $35 million for what it calls “rescue archaeology” at the site where Roman galleries can still be seen.
Rosia Montana is one of the richest deposits in Europe estimated to hold 314 tonnes of gold and 1,500 tonnes of silver.
If the project does not go ahead, TSX-listed Gabriel which has lost more than 60% of its market value this year, has threatened to sue the Romanian government, believing it has a “very robust case” for up to $4 billion in damage claims.
Click here for the full report and so-called “statement of significance” on Rosia Montana.
Roman soldier statuettes on a gilt mantle clock in the Royal Palace Amsterdam by Bob West
12 Comments
Filip
The fact of the matter is that the ancient Roman mining galleries have been restored and actually saved from destruction by the mining company. The Catalina-Monulesti galleries were in a very bad shape, due to lack of investments from the state, and incidents occured where tourists were injured by collapses, and the mining company sponsored the rehabilitation of the galleries and they can now be visited again. They even set aside a special fund for investmets in the restoration of the cultural heritage of Rosia Montana
Marius Cirsta
The fact of the matter is that Gabriel Resources spends massive amounts of money for propaganda. It’s everywhere in Romania explaining how much good the corporation will do by destroying a few mountains.
It seems lately this propaganda has gone online too. Very few people here in Romania support this mining project and many of the ones that do support it are paid by Gabriel Resources to do so.
Maybe they have restored some galleries but they’re going to destroy a lot more and do a lot damage that can never be undone.
ELENA
Restoring 500 METRES of Roman galleries in an area that’s of no interest for the mining company and destroying 7 KILOMETRES of the same galleries (the company admits they will be destroyed on their own web-site) is fair to you? Maybe, if you are gullible enough, or maybe you work for the Gold Corporation.
Alex
The fact of the matter is that those sums won’t even cover the costs of maintaining the dam. The dam will be one of the largest and at the same time will be built on a type of soil which is innadequite for this type. As named by the Romanian Geological Institute, it is a TIME BOMB. At the same time those galleryes will dissapear because the project will destroy the 4 mountains surrounding the areas. Can you please tell me how can you keep undeground mining galleries while destroying the muntain in which they lay?
The mining project is dangerous for the entire EU as it will destroy an important part of its history, an important ecological region and create one of the largest cyanide lakes in the world endangering the health of a grater part of Europe.
Michael Hall
I say stop the mining immediately. All the gold in the world is not worth the imminent destruction of that archaeology $35 million is a drop in the ocean “rescue archaeology”
As it is they have already destroyed and are further busy destroying the rest of that pristine area
Everybody up in arms. STOP THE PROJECT. The $500 million already spent by the mine should be considered a Fine for disturbing the area.
Pablo
We as a people love to hate mining, but everything we have in the modern world, and what the third world strives for is underpinned by the products of mining! If the world population keeps growing mining must keep growing. Urban sprawl has a much much bigger foot print than mining and a mush bigger environmental impact, with no real benefit other than for somewhere for us to live and consume!
Miroslav
Pablo,
I do agree with you – human civilization will need mining – on earth or asteroids or Moon but honestly – who needs the gold?
David_R59
OK, so the people do not want the mine. There’re all kinds of reasons to stop it.
The question is, why have they waited this long to stop it? Is it because they figured that some gullible foreign company will spend lots of money first and then just walk away giving all kinds of temporary jobs to the locals who, when the time comes, will simply stop the whole project.
“We’ve got your money, and that’s all we wanted. Now get lost!”
What with this fiasco, and the protests all over Europe against shale gas drilling, etc.
Many companies are certainly going to think twice about investing anywhere in the EU.
Marius Cirsta
David people have started protesting against this mine a long, long time ago. Our current government promised they would not go ahead with the project before the elections and now they changed their minds, I wonder why ? The truth is corporations can have a very big influence in politics as they have they money and will spend them to “lobby” for their project.
Gabriel Resources poured money into this because they didn’t want to loose, pack up and go. Nobody forced them to pay for commercials on TV that mostly annoyed people for instance. It was a risk, they chose to gamble and when you gamble you can also loose.
And yes we’re against shale gas too and many countries in the EU have already banned shale gas. If the corporations that are into this kind of business will want nothing to do with the EU I’m fine with that. We’ll manage and we’ll find other solutions. Just look at Japan which has no resources whatsoever and they seem to be doing fine.
If we won’t have shale gas we can use alternative energy sources and not only wind and solar but also cleaner nuclear power. In the long term new technologies might be developed that will give EU the edge.
Just look at cars, US cars were and probably still are gas monsters while EU cars are as efficient as they come yet are still good cars and do the job just fine.
Economics
The European engines are not, except a few, to run well in North America. We need a sturdy car which runs a lot of KM and also has some power in it. They do not consume as much as you think. A 3.1L engine consumes 2L/100km more and gas is cheaper. You have all the right to reject this project; I would prefer it goes through though. Consider this scenario: you do not approve the project, Gabriel resources sues and Romania will pay some penalties. This will not land very well with investors and you will lose some credibility. The area will “enjoy” high unemployment. As it goes in Romania, nothing will be done, except talk shows, to improve the economics in the area. Nothing will be done to restore the site either. So in 20 years you will get back to square one and think of the lost opportunity. You will have no tourism in the area, no economy, no site, no credibility. You might disagree but look around you. You cannot build 50 km of highway. Bulgaria is ten steps ahead in developing their Black Sea resorts. I would support this project, with all its side effects, simply because the Romanian governments, who were democratically elected by the Romanian people, have and will have no idea how to develop anything. That is why I left. Here we do frack, we do have open mines, the whole 9 yards, and yet I drank water directly from the river that goes through the city. Nothing happened to me. That river has the world record for trout. You need a reality check….
frankinca
These world heritage sites are a means of preserving anything a university professor(s) says is unique, not that the world needs it, only the ego of the professor. If the value of this site is so invaluable, then refund a good portion of the funds spent to open the mine at this site, which has to be reasonable by most contractual standards . Most foreign people have no skin in the game, yet they are used as a reference as what to do in an area totally foreign to them. If it’s preservation is so valuable then some organization would easily cough up the money to attach this public/wold serving effort to their corporate or foundation resume. So you skeptics go raise the money and preserve for all time what the Roman’s did, robbing the Hungarian people of their G– given resources. Maybe Italy will provide the money to resolve the guilt associated with the mine.
The environmental technical details have been examined thoroughly, and when explained to the interested public, they will allow the mine to be a world class European gold mine for everyone to be proud of! Skeptics and nea-sayers without definite facts are propagandists that need to be exposed.
frankinca
Last word. Roman mining archeology will not be the reason this mine will be constructed or not. Safety and economics will be the reason for the decision.