It has taken about six years but Bulgaria has finally granted a 30-year concession to Dundee Precious Metals (DPM-T), bringing it a step closer to developing its Khan Krum deposit in Krumovgrad into an open-pit gold mine. But the company must still wait for the Minister of Environment and Waters to approve the project’s environmental impact assessment, which is currently in the public consultation phase.
Dundee acquired the Khan Krum deposit in 2003 and completed a definitive feasibility and an environmental impact assessment in 2005. The mine plan envisioned a conventional fine grinding and carbon-in-leach operation. But the EIA approval procedure was stalled due to local objections and NGO activity.
The company submitted a second EIA for approval in 2010.
Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers granted the 30-year concession after Dundee reduced the mine’s operating footprint and agreed not to use cyanide in the processing.
The project’s new scope involves a single integrated tailings and mine-waste facility, and a longer operating life than previously considered. The changes were based on community feedback on the earlier project proposal, the company says.
The proposed mine site is about 320 km southeast of Sofia, the capital, and just south of the town of Krumovgrad in the Rhodope mountains near Bulgaria’s border with Greece.
Elsewhere in the country, Dundee operates the Chelopech copper and gold mine, about 70 km east of Sofia.
In anticipation of doubling concentrate production from Chelopech and guaranteeing value-added, downstream processing capacity, Dundee acquired the Tsumeb smelter in Namibia in January 2010. (Ore from Chelopech cannot be processed in Bulgaria due to its high arsenic content.)
At presstime in Toronto Dundee was trading at $8.70 per share. Over the last year the company has traded between a low of $2.95 on Mar. 15 2010 and a high of $10.26 on Dec. 6 2010. The company has about 124.9 million shares outstanding.
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