Photo Credit: Porgera Joint Venture
According to Mark Bristow, president and CEO of Barrick, the Porgera gold mine has reserves of about 10 million ounces.
He claimed that the 10 million ounces of resources will be enough to sustain the mine for the next 20 years.
“We’ve got enough resources over 10 million ounces to be able to support a 20-year life. Reserves mean that you finance by law so we are going to redo all that because things have changed but we are very confident that we will be able to convert a lot of those resources into reserves as well so that’s our first job,” he said.
Bristow stated that the business will assess the reserves and mining plans because they were only being developed as part of the renewal application before the closing last year.
“Now we will refresh that and the first refreshment is in July. We’re comfortable with a 10-year plan and we’re comfortable with a conceptual 20-year plan,” he said.
According to Bristow, the new Porgera structure is focused on the benefit of key stakeholders, namely the people of the host nation.
He stated that the first move they will do is to begin drilling.
“There will be two levels of drilling,” Bristow said. “The life of mine drilling which is to continue to make sure we’ve got visual visibility of the runway ahead of us and then what we call grade control drilling which allows us for detailed mine planning which we always draw ahead of every mining.
“The important thing about mining is you consume your asset every year and if you don’t reinvest it, it dies because you don’t replace what you mine.
“It’s a very important perspective to continue to reinvest in the future particularly in geology so that you replace the reserves that you are mining, it’s a consumptive industry.”
Reference:
Yafoi, Melisha. Post-Courier (9 June 2021). “Porgera Reserves At 10 Million Ounces”.
