The Independent Group of International Experts (IGIE) panel was convened in 2006 by the agreement of the Romanian and Hungarian Governments for the purposes of reviewing Gabriel Resources’ Rosia Montana gold project in Romania and its impacts. The IGIE report reaches the core conclusion that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the project is ‘well developed.’

“We are very appreciative of the expert review conducted by the IGIE,” said Alan Hill, CEO of Gabriel Resources. “It is clear the panel worked through the entirety of our 5,000 page EIA, which makes it all the more heartening that they find our project well developed.” The IGIE panel is composed of six mining and environmental experts, two each from Hungary and Romania, with the rest of the EU represented by members from Sweden and Germany.

The report includes a number of recommendations, which it defines as “observations which may bring improvement in the management of the project, but [are] not considered an absolute requirement that they should be implemented,” and concerns, which “require action from decision makers, authorities, and/or designers.” Hill commented, “While we are just now receiving the report, and our EIA team will review its findings with care, our initial assessment is that the concerns raised in it can and will be addressed within Romania’s EIA process.”