The Öksüt project, in Turkey, is moving into operation and will soon be Canadian miner Centerra Gold’s third source of gold production, company president and CEO Scott Perry announced on Thursday.
He said the project had started crushing stockpiled ore and stacking crushed ore on the heap leach pad, following the receipt of normal course approvals from the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation.
The first gold pour from Öksüt was expected in early January.
“This is an important milestone for the project as it moves into operation and is a testament to the hard work that our Öksüt team has put in to reach this goal,” said Perry.
The Öksüt project is a conventional truck and shovel openpit heap leach mining operation. 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, is planned to be mined and stacked over a mine life of eight years from two openpits - the Keltepe and the smaller Güneytepe pit.
In January last year, Centerra received the last permits required for the project, which paved the way for the project’s future development, and in late March 2018 construction activity started.
The company also owns the Mount Milligan mine, in Canada, and the Kumtor mine, in Kyrgyzstan.