MINING REFINING

Peruvian gold miner Poderosa plans to increase processing capacity

Wed June 19 2024

Peruvian gold miner Poderosa is preparing investments of US$13mn to expand its processing and tailings filtration plants from 800t/d to 960t/d. The company, which is the second largest gold miner in the country, presented a fourth substitute technical report (ITS) for its Poderosa production unit in La Libertad region to environmental regulator Senace for evaluation.

According to the company, the new capacity will apply until 2035, after which it will be reduced to 222t/d until 2049.

In 2023, Poderosa produced 8.38Mg (about 270,000oz) of gold, according to government figures. In the first four months of this year output was 3.07Mg, up from 2.73Mg in the same period 2023.

Spurred by higher prices, Peru’s total gold production rose 19.4% in January to April to 35.4Mg and exports by 55.4% to US$3.61bn.

MODIFICATIONS

The fourth ITS was prepared by environmental consulting firm Entrix and can be seen in the Documents box in the top-right corner of the screen. There are four main proposed modifications, along with auxiliary works:

• Increase the Marañón processing plant to 960t/d
• Increase the tailings filtering plant to 960t/d
• Construction of a new mineral storage area
• Construction of a new tunnel

Poderosa expects the work will take 474 days.

Source: https://www.bnamericas.com/