PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed gold producer Kingsgate Consolidated has approved a plant expansion for its Chatree gold project, in Thailand, after it was granted tax concessions for the project.

The fiscal incentive from the Thai government included an eight-year tax-free period from first production, followed by a further five years at half of the 30% corporate tax fee.

Kingsgate said that the Chatree plant expansion would start immediately with the finalising of the engineering and construction contracts.

The new Chatree North processing plant would be a separate 2,7-million ton a year ore processing plant, built alongside the current 2,3-million ton a year Chatree processing plant. This would lift the combined total ore processing capacity to more than five-million tons a year.

When fully operational, gold production levels at Chatree had the potential to increase to a rate of between 200 000 oz/y and 250 000 oz/y.

Kingsgate MD Gavin Thomas said that it would initiate funding arrangements for the $100-million necessary to complete the plant expansion. It was envisaged that these funding arrangements would be predominantly debt facilities.

To date, around $25-million has been spent on long-lead items and engineering design, and Thomas said that Kingsgate currently had about $36-million in cash and a further $30-million undrawn working capital facility.

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