The imminent increase in the production of gold, silver, zinc and lead concentrates from five hundred and twenty thousand tons per year, to six hundred and fifty thousand tons, was announced by the “Hellenic Gold” company to representatives of the press who visited the Kassandra Mines.

It is also expected that the company will begin commercial exploitation of the Skourion deposit, with gold and copper concentrates, at the end of 2025.

The representatives of “Hellenic Gold” communicated their plans during a visit and tour of the company’s mines and facilities, as well as Skouries, which in the coming period are intended to be the “jewel in the crown” for the company in everything concerns its mining activity in the area.

“On the final stretch” for Skouries

The executives of the company expressed their optimism, that they are now “on the final stretch” for Skouries.

For the investment, seven hundred and forty million euros have already been committed out of the approximately nine hundred million, which will be allocated in total for the exploitation of the field. This is mainly where the over eighty million Canadian dollars will be invested, which is the amount of funding, with which Eldorado Gold’s strategic collaboration with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has begun.

In Skouries, today, a thousand people are employed by contracts and this number will increase, initially to 1300within the next six to seven months. The new staff will be trained by the company so that the mine can operate productively.

The deputy construction manager at the Skouria project, Stratos Zachareas, underlined that the deposit has proven reserves of 740,000 tonnes of gold and 3.6 million ounces of gold.

OR annual productionstarting at the end of 2025, in ore will amount to 140,000 ounces of gold and in 67 million pounds of copper.

The Skourion project is at 76% of construction (and 52% after construction resumes). Engineering works reach 72% and spending commitments reach 83% by the end of the year. The beneficiation plant has already been completed and the construction of the remaining mining facilities is progressing.

In the surface mine at Skouries, mining will reach up to two hundred meters deep. The first nine years will be carried out simultaneously with the underground exploitation, which at the end of twenty years will reach a depth of up to a thousand meters.

During the first nine years they will be together surface and underground mining and for the remaining eleven years, underground exploitation will continue, while at the same time full environmental restoration of the open pit will be carried out.

The construction site covers an area of ​​2,500 acres. The diameter of the surface exploitation of the Skourion mine is approximately eight hundred meters.

With respect for the environment

SKOYRIES

“If it was anywhere else, the diameter of surface mining would be at least three times that. But it is our choice to leave as small a surface footprint as possible, to preserve the forest, and for that we will go for vertical exploitation”, said the vice-president of Commercial Development and External Relations of “Eldorado Gold” and president of “Hellenic Gold”, Christos Balaskas , and added:

“Our choice is underground exploitation and limited surface intervention, adapting to the needs of the local community and to the protection of the forest. Despite the higher cost, we will not further affect the surface. After the first decade, the restoration of the surface trench will begin to integrate into the ecosystem.”

In relation to the first study of the project in Skouries in 2011, the environmental footprint is reduced by 40%, due to the new technology used, instead of the simple, filtered tailings, with the process of dry deposition (dehydration of tailings) corresponding to the process which is followed in Kokkinolakka”, emphasized Mr. Zachareas.

“There is a happy moment at the moment that this mine is starting up, because as you will know, already the world demand for copper has increased enormously. It is projected to increase by approximately 100% to 38.5 million tons by 2035. That is, plus 93% until 2035″, Mr. Zachareas continued and added: “The applications of copper have to do with electric cars, with metal constructions and with renewable energies”.

The executives of the company noted that the European Union has institutionalized the Act on Mineral Raw Materials and now it is expected how to integrate the legislation in the member states, in order to give further impetus to the mining activities, regarding critical mineral products.

The productivity of the Olympiad mine increases

At the Olympiada mine, production is planned to increase from approximately half a billion tons per year to six hundred and fifty thousand tons per year. This will be achieved by adding special machines that process the ore. Productivity is expected to increase from next year and gradually increase more and more, so that in the next two to three years the target set has been fully achieved.

The deputy general manager of operations of the Olympiada mine, Michalis Papasotiriou, took the journalists on a tour of the underground mine at a depth of 247 meters below the sea, followed by tours of the beneficiation plant, the nursery and the environmental restorations.

The chemical engineer and manager of the Olympiad enrichment plant, Telemachos Pefkos, explained the role of the processing plant, which produces concentrates of four different metals. From the 1500 tons of raw ore per day, 600 tons of concentrate with a content of 23-25 ​​grams of gold per ton are obtained. Another 100 to 150 tons of concentrates concern ores with silver, lead and zinc content. The remaining 700 tons of silt is 90% returned to the galleries to fill the paid galleries through stone filling.

“Hellenic Gold” “runs” four restorations of old deposits of the Bodosaki era, with the largest deposit lake of Olympiada, 300 acres. It is estimated that the company’s nursery in Olympiada has one million new saplings, which are used to rehabilitate areas where there was previous mining activity. In these areas, a large percentage of the soil was processed, from which precious metals were obtained, while trees compatible with the flora of the area were planted on the renewed, now clean soils.

The “Hellenic Gold” nursery in Olympiada supplies municipal nurseries and private plantings with saplings, which are irrigated with the treated water, after it has been sanitized. According to the company’s experts, not only is it suitable for irrigation, but its quality characteristics “are very close to those of drinking water”.

The president of the company H. Balaskas mentioned the excellent prospects from the commercial exploitation of Skouria and Olympiada and argued that “any reactions are of an ideological nature”, pointing out that now any reservations about the environmental effects have been overcome after the strategic cooperation with the EBRD, saying: “The company gives two million euros a year for the environmental monitoring program, while the EBRD has also imposed an independent body to control the environmental impacts.”

He emphasized, in fact, that all the best practices from other regions of the planet, where there is mining activity, are adopted and followed. “Now, mining workers observe all safety measures with personal protective equipment, on a case-by-case basis – gloves, glasses, special shoes – and follow the danger signs in each area. Already, a large part of the production is done with the help of new technology, automated or even with remote operation, as the autonomous private 5G network works in the galleries and there is continuous communication in every field of work inside the tunnels”.