Australian gold producer, Southern Gold’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Southern Gold Korea (SGK) has received approval from South Korean mining regulators enabling the re-opening of and access to the historic Gubong underground gold mine. This approval will enable Southern Gold’s development partner, LSE-listed Bluebird Merchant Ventures Ltd, to achieve access and begin its process of project assessment under the Farm-In and Joint Venture Agreement signed with Bluebird in March this year.

The Gubong gold mine was historically South Korea’s second largest gold mine with multiple gold bearing quartz veins being mined over a 60 year period. Bluebird indicates that there is more than 50 km of level development accessed by two vertical shafts and six inclined shafts in what was a substantial mining operation.

Bluebird will now proceed to re-open the mine, conduct preliminary assessment works and complete an evaluation of re-starting operations at the mine. This evaluation will take six to nine months and cover modern era resource estimation, mining methodology, metallurgical studies, capital and operating cost estimates and financial analysis.

Southern Gold has also been active on community relations and management of regulators more broadly (such as the Mine Safety Office, MIRECO and Mine Registry Office) and has been extremely pleased with the response of the local community and South Korean regulators.

Southern Gold Managing Director, Simon Mitchell: “Southern Gold believes there is a significant embedded dollar value in this underground development with the existing mining infrastructure providing an opportunity for low capital cost options for a future new mining regime at Gubong.

“We have made great progress at this project, being several weeks ahead of schedule in terms of access approvals. This bodes well for moving the project through the next stages. I think the rate of progress on this front will pleasantly surprise investors.”