Name and Location
El Morro copper/gold project, Atacama region, Chile.

Client
Sociedad Contractual Minera El Morro, a joint venture between Goldcorp (70%) and New Gold (30%).

Project Description
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 totalling 6.7-million ounces of gold and 4.9 billion pounds of copper.

Two principal zones of gold/copper mineralisation have been identified to date, the El Morro and La Fortuna zones.
The El Morro project currently considers 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 includes 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 includes 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 is also considered, with the route serving as the concentrate and water pipeline route and the preferred location for the project power line.

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

Value
$3.9-billion.

Duration
Not stated.

Latest Developments
Chile's Supreme Court has halted the development of the El Morro gold and copper mine, saying that local indigenous groups who oppose the $3.9-billion project need to be better consulted.

The decision overturns 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 has been stalled since last year – claimed that a previous consultation on El Morro was not properly conducted.

They also say the mine in northern Chile is planned on what they deem as sacred ancestral land, and that it could pollute a local river.

The court has said that an environmental permit awarded last year should be stopped until a fresh consultation, based on an International Labour Organisation convention, has taken place with the local Diaguita community.

Goldcorp is reviewing the judgment.

The decision is the latest in a string of judgments that have ruled against mining companies aiming to invest in Chile. Like many of its resource-intensive Latin American peers, the country is struggling to find a balance between mining-led growth and environmental protection.

Billions of dollars worth of projects have been stalled or delayed in recent years, snarled up in red tape and opposed by local communities.

Operations at El Morrow were due to start in 2017.

The project, however, seems to have gone to the backburner for Goldcorp. It was absent from a list of organic growth opportunities mentioned by CEO Chuck Jeannes at a gold conference in Denver last month, with Jeannes pointing to the Camino Rojo project, in Mexico, as the company's biggest internal opportunity.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Initial production from the mine was expected in 2017 with full production expected in 2018; however, construction at the mine was halted in April 2012 after the Supreme Court of Chile suspended the approval of the environmental permit for the project until the company had fully consulted the community.

Contact Details for Project Information
Goldcorp investor relations VP Jeff Wilhoit, tel +1 604 696 3074, fax +1 604 696 3001 or email info@goldcorp.com.
New Gold VP corporate development, Hannes Portmann, tel 1 416 324 6014 or email info@newgold.com