Reprise des opérations de Amulsar mine d’or, autorisée

Citing the findings of an independent environmental audit commissioned by his government, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Monday his intention to allow an Anglo-American company to restart a controversial gold mining project in Armenia disrupted a year ago.

Pashinyan said that the company, Lydian International, will have to stick to “unprecedentedly high environmental standards that have not been applied in Armenia until now.”

He said that the government will also force other mining companies operating in the country to gradually comply with those standards. He claimed that some of those companies have sponsored environmentalists’ campaigns against Lydian in an effort to kill the Amulsar project and thus avoid spending large sums of money on improving their notoriously poor environmental records.

Work on the massive gold mine located in the southeastern Vayots Dzor province started in August 2016 following a lengthy licensing process. But it ground to a halt in June 2018 as several dozen protesters blocked all roads leading to Amulsar. The roads have remained closed since then, with the protesters saying that gold mining and smelting operations there would pollute air, soil and water ….

source : Massis media

Amulsar gold mine is located 170km south of the capital city Yerevan in Armenia. The mine was discovered in 2006 by Lydian International in the south of Armenia, on the border between the provinces of Vayots Dzor and Sunnik.

The project falls under two special prospecting licences (SPL), numbers 41 and 42, and a small mining licence (14/588). These licences cover an area of 113 square kilometres and are 100% owned by Lydian’s fully owned subsidiary Geoteam CJSC (closed joint stock company). The SPLs, granted in 2009, are valid for five years, while the mining licence is valid for 25 years.

Lydian started 2012 drilling programme in May in order to determine new mineralisation and to broaden current resource shell. Lydian plans to start full production from the mine in 2014.

source : miningfrontier.com