PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Kingsgate Consolidated on Friday reached an agreement with the Thai government to hold the issue of the Thai-Australia Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) award by the arbitral tribunal until the end of December 2022.
The agreement resulted after the Thai government allowed Kingsgate to reopen its Chatree gold mine in January, awarding the company four outstanding mining leases required to operate the mine.
Kingsgate said on Friday that the TAFTA framework remaining in place would be advantageous to the company, as it would provide confidence to all stakeholders around the restart of the mine, provide Kingsgate with an added level of comfort to invest the necessary capital to restart the mine, and provide an opportunity to resolve a small number of non-operational matters as part of the TAFTA process with Thailand.
“It’s pleasing that we can engage in a mutual dialogue with the Thai government about restarting Chatree, and at the same time deal with the TAFTA framework in a sensible and constructive manner. There is no downside to Kingsgate for the TAFTA award to be held for a further period, and I want to make it abundantly clear that this in no way impacts the restart of the Chatree gold mine,” said executive chairperson Ross Smyth-Kirk.
Work is being finalised on the capital expenditure required for the re-start which is anticipated to include the refurbishment of both Plants 1 and 2, which together, will have a total yearly throughput capacity of over five-million tonnes. In addition, a specialist recruitment agency has been appointed to manage the appointment of the critical technical staff required to operate the mine.