Centerra Gold announced that its Gatsuurt project, which is located 35 km from its Boroo mine in Mongolia, has been designated as a mineral deposit of strategic importance by the Mongolian Parliament. This designation allows the project to move forward within the application of the Water and Forest Law and also allows Mongolia to acquire up to a 34% interest in the project. Further development of the project will be subject to, among other things, receiving Parliamentary approval of the Mongolia’s state ownership as well as all required approvals and regulatory commissioning from the Mongolian government.
“Centerra has had very productive discussions with the Mongolian government during the past year, which we expect will continue as we finalize the permits and agreements that need to be put in place prior to Gatsuurt beginning production,” said Ian Atkinson, president and CEO, Centerra Gold. “We have operated the Boroo mine for more than 10 years and look forward to developing the Gatsuurt project, which we expect will allow us to continue to operate in Mongolia for many more years to come.”
The Gatsuurt project’s estimated mineral reserves as of December 31 were 17.1 million metric tons (mt) at an average grade of 2.9 g/mt of gold containing 1.6 million oz of gold using a cut-off grade of 1.4 g/mt. Centerra plans to mine the ore at Gatsuurt and truck it to the existing Boroo mill to be processed. Under the current plan for Gatsuurt, the company expects to process approximately 3.6 million mt of CIP ore with an average grade of 2.86 g/mt of gold through the existing Boroo facility in the first two and a half operating years of the Gatsuurt project. During this time, a BIOX facility is planned to be added to the existing Boroo facility, which will be used for the processing of the remaining BIOX ores totaling approximately 13.5 million mt with an average grade of 2.92 g/mt of gold.
