The Öksüt mine, in Turkey, has achieved its first gold pour – on schedule and ahead of budget, Canadian miner Centerra Gold announced on Friday.
The gold pour was achieved in the same week that Öksüt celebrated a safety milestone of two-million lost-time, injury-free work hours.
“This is an important milestone for the project and for the growth of the company as Öksüt is now our third operating mine and our third source of gold production going forward,” said Centerra CEO Scott Perry.
The Öksüt project is a conventional truck and shovel openpit heap leach mining operation. It is planned that a total of about 28.2-million tonnes of ore at a grade of 1.3 g/t gold, containing a total of about 1.2-million ounces of gold, will be mined and stacked over a mine life of eight years from two openpits - the Keltepe and the smaller Güneytepe pit.
“Reaching the first gold pour is a testament to the dedication and hard work that our Öksüt team has put in to reach this goal safely,” commented Perry.
The company also owns the Mt Milligan mine, in Canada, and the Kumtor mine, in Kyrgyzstan.