The Marudi Mountain gold mining claim in Region Nine, which is now at the centre of a heated row over illegal mining, was prospected on since 1990, but has not been brought into production despite promises from a number of companies.
Gold has been extracted from the claim by small miners operating illegally but who say they have made sales to the Guyana Gold Board, despite earlier claims by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) that none of them had made any declarations and that there were no records of production.
The reported sales are now the subject of an official investigation even as questions have been raised about whether the mines commission is prudently monitoring prospecting companies and ensuring that they don’t tie up productive areas for no good reason.
Four years after the Government of Guyana granted Romanex a licence for alluvial gold mining at Marudi, the company’s licence is now under review, since from that time to now there has been no mining or exploration activity by the company. The company is now said to be in discussions with the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment with a view to finalising its plans for the commencement of its operations.
Gelly Gnissios, Director of Romanex Guyana and CEO of Guyana Frontier, told Stabroek News that it was a combination of issues that precluded the company commencing mining operations, chief among them being the issue of illegal miners.
He said the illegal mining raised safety and environmental concerns for Romanex. He also said that the company wanted to expand its prospective operations into larger deposits and hence was engaged in additional prospecting. He said the company is working with the GGMC to finalise its development plan for its operations and he could not at this point reveal much more about this.
Asked about the commencement of the mining operation, Gnissios said it was too early to speak about the company’s prospects for the immediate future. He said, however, that the size of the project will be in the neighbourhood of the Aurora gold project – a US$205 million operation spanning 22 years and a production of nearly 4.4 million ounces of gold.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the GGMC, which had been investigating illegal mining at Marudi, recently announced that the Marudi Mountain Licence held by Romanex was under review. The GGMC reported that a site visit revealed no mining or exploration on behalf of the company was ongoing, although the company had earlier committed to carrying out exploration activities within the early part of 2013. It said too, it was evident that no work is expected to commence on the property in the near future as the company had submitted no mining plan.
It was noted that the Marudi Mountain Mining Licence was granted to Romanex Guyana Exploration Ltd on April 17, 2009 and that it existed before as a prospecting licence (large scale) from between 1990 and 2009.
Romanex, which was granted a licence to commence large-scale gold mining at Marudi, had indicated that mining would have started in 2009. The company had done its exploration work and said it would have produced between 50,000 and 100,000 ounces per year.
It obtained its licence through Vannessa Ventures Limited, which has since changed its name to Infinito Gold Limited. For several years, both companies had been conducting studies in the areas they intend to mine.
Shoreham Resources Limited, a Canadian exploration company had exercised an option to acquire 75% of the shares of Romanex, which is held by Infinito Gold Corporation. A press release from Shoreham had also announced that the company had signed an agreement with a French mining company Rexma Participacions (Rexma), for that company to work in Shoreham’s Marudi Mountain Gold Project.
Years of inactivity
Because of the years of inactivity on the Marudi Mountain claim, small miners gradually moved into the area and had been pressing to be given clearance to commence mining legally. But the GGMC recently said that it was taking steps to charge a number of dredge owners working on the Marudi claim illegally, although its campaign to evict miners has been stained by the surfacing of a video that shows a member of the Guyana Police Force, who was supporting the GGMC team, beating persons on the Marudi trail.
Environment Minister Robert Persaud did not want to speak on the history of the Marudi Mountain licence until the completion of the review process.
The lack of mining activity does not necessarily mean revocation of the licence for non-performance, according to GGMC Commissioner Rickford Vieira. Vieira told Stabroek News that Romanex and the companies it was in the joint venture with are all small exploration companies who come in and do the exploration. “These are junior exploration companies. They take the risks and find the reserves then they go back and get investors,” said Vieira. He said that if there is no gold found, the exploration companies lose all of the money invested in the prospecting.
He explained that the laws allow for exploration companies to come in and explore for deposits of gold and when these are discovered, larger mining companies come in and take over the project. The government cannot force these companies to spend money, he pointed out, while adding that competition among the exploration companies is high at the moment, since they “have options.”
Vieira said that Romanex “is in keeping with the timeline established for development and exploitation which is the pertinent aspect of their licence” and that the exploration programme to establish the mineral reserve of the property prior to issuing the licence was completed.
There are areas which undergo continuous exploration over the years and former GGMC commissioner William Woolford pointed out that the Marudi Mountain area is one of them.
He said that after continuous tries, the licence may be reissued to another company after a while and he believes that it is a good thing that the government is agitating for Romanex to say what it intends to do with its mining licence, given the length of time since it was issued.
Woolford noted that prospecting takes time and investment and it is not unusual for a company like Romanex to spend years in the field without finding gold. The majority of companies prospecting for gold come up empty, he pointed out, adding that only just about 10 per cent of them go on to fructify. “Mining is high risk, not only in terms of health and environment but also in terms of being able to define proven reserves and satisfy the requirements for financing,” he said.
Woolford added that there might be 100 prospecting licences issued and of that only 10 of them go on to be mining licences with good results. He said that it is not something that people should be bothered about, since it is not just in Guyana but worldwide.
