South Africa’s second-largest gold-miner, Gold Fields, may build another 
gold mine in the Andes, this time 5 000 m up.

The Chucapaca, in southern Peru, is at an advanced stage of drilling and Gold Fields hopes to have a scoping study out by June 2010.

Gold Fields earlier this year fully commissioned its Cerro Corona gold mine, in northern Peru, which gave a strong performance in the September quarter.

“Its grades look stellar,” Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland said last week.

Chucapaca is one of three 
advanced drilling projects, the other two being in the Yanfolila Belt, in Mali, and at Talas, in Kyrgyzstan.

“I am intending to get there in the next couple of months to have a look at it,” Holland said of Chucapaca.

He conceded that operating at 5 000 m would be a challenge, but Gold Fields currently operated at 4 000 m at Cerro Corona, situated in the highest part of the Western Cordillera of the Andes.

Chucapaca is a 51:49 joint venture project with the diversi-fied South American mining company, Buenaventura.

Gold Fields has been active in Peru for the last six years and has a good grasp of the politics and the socioeconomic issues.

“I would be quite happy to build another mine there,” Holland said.

Gold Fields has several projects in the Yanfolila Belt, following its acquisition of Glencar.

Gold Fields intends inten-sifying its Yanfolila drill-
ing campaign after Mali’s 
rainy season ends, with a concept study expected in 12 months.

The third advanced drilling project is the Talas project, where the focus is on the Taldybulak copper/gold porphyry target and where concept study is expected 
to be completed by the end of June.

Talas is in the Tien Shan gold belt, which extends from Eastern Europe, across Central Asia and into western China.

“Tien Shan’s a big belt, and we know there are some big 
deposits there. I want us to be 
patient in Kyrgyzstan and not rush things. 
“We know, from what we’ve seen there already, that there’s large potential,” Holland said of Kyrgyzstan, where the Soviet Union had established considerable infrastructure in a countryside of snow-capped mountains.

“We have never had three 
advanced-stage drilling projects before, and there is a pretty good chance that one of these will be a mine. 
“We have never been in better shape to deliver a new mine into the Gold Fields portfolio and it’s long overdue, and we hope to deliver at least one of them and maybe even all three,” said Holland.

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