At long last, Gabriel Resources‘ (GBU-T, GBRRF-O) has submitted to the government of Romania an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for its 80%-owned Rosia Montana gold project in Western Transylvania.
The study will now face up to six months of scrutiny by the Ministry of the Environment and Waters Management, and a public consultation process lasting 30 business days. The location and schedule for the public consultation will be released shortly. The Ministry will review the public’s comments and ask Gabriel for its responses, which will be published as an annex to the EIA.
“We look forward to the review, scrutiny and public consultation process as an opportunity to inform the interested public about our project at Rosia Montana,” said Gabriel’s chief executive Alan Hill in a prepared statement. “We have designed Rosia Montana to be a model mining project not just for Romania, but for all of Europe.”
He says the project will provide significant economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits to the people of Rosia Montana and the country as a whole.
Not everyone agrees. Rosia Montana has long been a target of protesters that fear the project could endanger the area’s environment and historical monuments. The project also previously faced criticism by the country’s prime minister even as a parliamentary commission’s investigation was concluding that the mine would prove beneficial if promised standards were maintained. The project has also faced opposition from neighbouring Hungary.
Rosia Montana’s EIA process began in late 2004,with the submission of a project presentation report to the Ministry of Environment, which in turn delivered its requirements for the content of the EIA in May 2005.
The sheer size of the study — 5, 000 pages in 10 chapters — also slowed progress. Once completed, the study needed to be translated into English, Romanian, and Hungarian. Hungary has voiced opposition to the project’s plan to use cyanide.
With the delay in delivering its EIA, Gabriel now expects to receive construction permits in late 2006 or early 2007. Still, the company says it remains on track to pour its first gold in the spring of 2009.
Meanwhile, the company says it has acquired or holds under option just more than half of the homes it needs to move before a mine can be built. It also says that a court case aimed at annulling the company’s archaeological discharge certificate for the Cirnic massif has been delayed as the opposition attempts to introduce additional plaintiffs.
A recently updated feasibility study of Rosia Montana envisages an open-pit mine annually producing 500,000 oz. gold at total cash costs of US$237 per oz., over 15.6 years. The project centres on proven and probable reserves totaling 215 million tonnes running 1.46 grams gold and 6.9 grams silver per tonne, for 10.1 million contained ounces of gold and 47.6 million oz. silver.
In all, the project is home to measured and indicated resources totalling 350.3 million tonnes grading 1.3 grams gold and 6 grams silver per tonne, based on 0.6-gram cutoff. Another 30.3 million tonnes of inferred material grades 1.2 grams gold and 3 grams silver.
Share in Gabriel were off 7 at $2.78 in late-afternoon trading in Toronto following the news on May 18.
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