International Mining Project News will go out to subscribers on January 4. Could it be that Gabriel Resources will finally be able to get the Rosia Montana gold project in Romania into production – potentially Europe’s largest gold mine? It has closed a private placement with BSG Capital Markets for proceeds to the company of $67.5 million. In Ecuador, a definitive agreement has been signed for CRCC-Tongguan to acquire Corriente Resources. This should provide the large capital investment required to develop the Mirador and Panantza-San Carlos copper projects. The deposits are part of the Corriente Copperbelt and Mirador is one of the few, sizable copper projects in the world available for near term production. Its mineral resources include Measured and Indicated ore of 438 Mt at 0.61% Cu, 0.19 g/t Au and 1.5 g/t Ag and Inferred of 235 Mt at 0.52% Cu, 0.17 g/t Au and 1.3 g/t Ag. Corriente has completed a feasibility study on milling 30,000 t/d from a 181 Mt in-pit resource, over a 19 year mine life, and with a 0.8:1 strip ratio. There is much more valuable news in the publication.
Kazakhmys has secured up to $2.7 billion of this loan for its growth projects. $2 billion of which will be available to fund the development of the Boschekul copper project and $100 million to fund the development of the Bozymchak gold/copper project.
Osisko Mining is making great progress with the construction and development program at its Canadian Malartic project in Quebec, Canada. Construction of the processing plant at Galaxy Resources’ Mt Cattlin spodumene project near Ravensthorpe, Western Australia is progressing on schedule. Integra Mining has all regulatory approvals to develop the Randalls gold project. Randalls will be only the second integrated mining and processing new gold mine development based on a new gold discovery in Australia in the past 10 years.
Avocet Mining has first gold production at its Inata mine in Burkina Faso. NovaGold Resources is purchasing the Ambler property in northern Alaska, USA which hosts the high-grade copper-zinc-gold-silver Arctic deposit. A resource estimate completed in 2008 confirmed the Arctic deposit as one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-zinc VMS deposits, with very high grades and significant precious metal credits.
London Mining’s bankable feasibility study for the Wadi Sawawin project, confirming its strategic and economic importance to Saudi Arabia. Wadi Sawawin will provide Saudi Arabia with a domestic source of direct reduction (DR) iron ore pellets for use in the DRI steel plants which account for 90% of steel production in the Middle East and North African region. In the same country, Saudi Arabian Mining (Maaden) and Alcoa have agreed to build a $10.8 billion aluminium complex, targetting the Middle East from 2013. Under the deal, the companies form a joint venture to set up a 4 Mt/y bauxite mine, a 1.8 Mt/y refinery, a 740,000 t/y smelter, and a rolling mill with a capacity of up to 460,000 t/y.
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