Underground mining for gold begins at Aurora mining site

The company has said that the underground operations are aimed at extracting more than 2 million ounces of gold.

Underground mining for gold begins at Aurora mining site

Guyana Goldfields has indicated that its move to begin underground exploration for gold at its Aurora mines site has turned out to be a success.

Earlier this year, the company received clearance from the Environmental Protection Agency and other related agencies to begin the underground exploration.

According to the company’s Senior Vice-President for Strategy and Corporate Affairs, Perry Holloway, the company has received permission to conduct up to 2,500 metres of underground exploration, plus test mining for 300,000 tons of ore.

He told the Department of Public Information that “we have started and have gone down a couple of hundred meters; maybe three or four hundred metres right now. Everything so far is going great, the rocks are cool, some people thought it would be hot, there is very little water, some people thought there would be a lot of water as we are very close to the Cuyuni River, none of that is true.”

Holloway said side drilling would begin soon to determine where and how much gold was at the location.

There have been previous efforts of underground mining for gold in Guyana but the current operation by Guyana Goldfields is the largest.

During a visit to the mine site, Minister of Natural Resources, Hon. Raphael Trotman, said he is pleased with the current progress reports from the company.

“I’m happy to see that issues and some challenges with GGMC and EPA have been resolved and the company has been able to start the exploratory aspect of the digging and hopefully things progressed and a full mining permit will be given by both the GGMC and EPA,” Trotman said.

Aurora Gold Mines is one of the largest gold mining operations in Guyana.

The company has said that the underground operations are aimed at extracting more than 2 million ounces of gold.

Aurora has a total gold resource of 6.25 million ounces in the measured and indicated categories, as well as an additional 1.79 million ounces in the inferred category.

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