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Goldcorp heads back to the drawing board after withdrawing El Morro EIS

7th November 2014

By: Henry Lazenby

Creamer Media Deputy Editor: North America

  

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TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The world’s most valuable gold producer by market capitalisation Goldcorp on Friday said it had withdrawn its environmental-impact study for the $3.9-billion El Morro copper/gold project, in Chile, after an October ruling by the Chilean Supreme Court halted development on the grounds that local indigenous groups opposing the project needed better consultation.

The Vancouver-based miner, which reported a 63% decline in headline earnings in the September quarter, said its team had started work on studies to determine an optimal new development plan for the El Morro project, that met Goldcorp's investment-return criteria.

The court ruled last month that an environmental permit awarded last year by the Atacama Region environmental authority should be invalidated until a new round of consultations with the local Diaguita community, based on an International Labour Organisation convention, had taken place.

The decision overturned a local appeals court finding from April 2013, which dismissed an appeal lodged by the Diaguita.

The Diaguita – who also opposed the massive Barrick Gold Pascua-Lama project, which had been stalled since last year – claimed that a previous consultation on El Morro was not properly conducted.

They also said the mine in northern Chile was planned on what they deemed as sacred ancestral land and that it could pollute a local river.

"While we were disappointed with the final Chilean court ruling, it has afforded us a unique opportunity to challenge our previous assumptions within the context of evolving industry dynamics. The goal of this effort is to deliver an even stronger project that provides significant mutual benefits to the surrounding community, our employees and our shareholders,” Goldcorp president and CEO Chuck Jeannes said.

SIGNIFICANT POTENTIAL

According to Goldcorp’s previous plans, El Morro is an advanced stage gold/copper property, located about 80 km east of Vallenar, in the Atacama region of north-central Chile, which, at December 31, 2012, had proven and probable reserves in situ of 6.7-million ounces of gold and 4.9-billion pounds of copper.

Two main zones of gold/copper mineralisation had been identified to date, the El Morro and La Fortuna zones.

The El Morro project considered the mining and milling of sulphide copper and gold ore from the La Fortuna mineral deposit using a 90 000 t/d concentrator.

The plant design included a crushing plant, a semiautogenous grinding circuit and a rougher flotation and regrind circuit, as well as cleaner and scavenger flotation banks.

Additional project-related infrastructure included a desalination plant, a power plant and a concentrate filtration plant.

The construction of a new access route from the project to the Pan American highway was also considered, with the route serving as the concentrate and water pipeline route and the preferred location for the project power line.

It was planned that water supply would be sourced from a reverse-osmosis desalination plant that would produce 740 l/s of agricultural-quality water, which would be conveyed to site along a 193-km-long water pipeline. Concentrate would be transferred through a pipeline to a concentrate filter plant at the port site for overseas shipment.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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