Archipelago says N. Sulawesi gold mine may start production in 2008
Wednesday, June 27 2007 - 04:36 PM WIB
The company said in recent announcement that the approval from the government was expected to be obtained in August this year.
Lack of approval from Indonesian authorities has caused delay to the project.
?The company has spent much of the past year working with Indonesian Government authorities towards achieving a satisfactory outcome to the AMDAL issue. Final revised documents were lodged in November 2006 and, after extensive review by technical teams from both Central and Provincial Governments, were declared acceptable. Prior to February 2007, the process leading to formal approval had enjoyed support from the Governor of the Province of North Sulawesi. However, this support has been withdrawn in recent months on the basis of a number of purported issues, all of which have previously been thoroughly reviewed and accepted by the AMDAL Assessment Commission as part of due process and prior advice to that effect had been sent to the Governor. The issues claimed are ?community rejection?, ?appropriate process technology? and ?Provincial spatial planning?,? the company said.
Specifically, Archipelago has satisfied the authorities that Toka Tindung: Enjoys 80%. local community support; can achieve World Bank and Australian National Park standards for release of surplus water, both of which are far more stringent than the Indonesian National standards require for AMDAL and is fully compliant with all permitted activity regulations. Accordingly, the company believes there is no basis in fact for the concerns raised,? it said.
The Project has a defined resource of 1.75m oz gold equivalent of which 0.9m oz will initially be mineable by means of five open pits.
The company has acquired used a processing plant from Barrick Gold?s El Tambo project in Chil. The plant has arrived at Toka Tindung where it will undergo refurbishment prior to installation with new structural steelwork, piping and cabling.
Considerable civil works have been completed at Toka Tindung including preparation of the process plant construction site and construction of three dams for water supply and sediment control. In addition a jetty has been constructed together with a 7km road linking it to the plant site.
Mining at Toka Tindung will be by way of five open pits with ore processed through a centralised carbon in leach (CIL) plant. The mineralogy of the Toka Tindung deposits is simple with indicated gold recoveries of approximately 94%. Subject to AMDAL approval, production is targeted an annual average production rate of 160,000 oz per annum gold equivalent.
The mine currently has an initial planned life of 6 years, however given the current high gold price and excellent exploration potential at Toka Tindung, the company is very confident of substantially extending the operational life, the company said.(alex)