Peru’s small miners block highways, camp outside Congress demanding registry extension
Analyst says that there are strong competing interests between Congress and small-scale miners that could escalate.
Osisko Mining was down another 12% today after providing an update on a mill fire at its Canadian Malarctic Mine in Quebec last week.
Investors are reacting to news that processing will be halted as a result of the fire which started in a cyclone and spread to the roof.
Osisko said today that the mill will remain shut down for two to three weeks, while mining will continue in the open pit.
The company said civil engineering inspections have been conducted on the mill floor and roof areas affected by the fire, and safety concerns have been addressed. “Clean-up and repair work has commenced.”
A 600-tonne capacity mobile crane has been brought to the site, and the damaged cyclone bank is being removed from the building for refurbishing starting Monday night. Osisko said it should be able to resume production “in the near term” using the three undamaged cyclone banks at reduced throughput.
The Canadian Malarctic mine has 10.7 million ounces of gold reserves according to the latest resource estimate released in March, 2011. The mine in the Abitibi region of Quebec started producing in June of last year and Osisko estimates it will extract about 9 million ounces up to 2027.
