 | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Central Macedonia | |
| Country | Greece |
| Production | |
| Products | Gold, Copper |
| Owner | |
| Company | Eldorado Gold |
| Year of acquisition | 2012 |
The Skouries mine is a high-grade gold-copper porphyry deposit located in the Chalkidiki peninsula in northern Greece. It is currently under development by Eldorado Gold and is planned to be an open pit and underground mine. Production is targeted in 2019. [1]
Skouries is a gold-copper porphyry deposit centred on a small, pencil-porphyry stock that intruded schist and gneiss of the Paleozoic Vertiskos Formation of the Serbo-Macedonian Massif in northeastern Greece. The porphyry is characterized by at least four intrusive phases that are of monzonite to syenite composition, but contain an intense potassic alteration and related stockwork veining that overprints the original protolith. The host porphyry and potassic alteration at Skouries were coeval and formed during the Early Miocene. [2]
Skouries is being developed in two phases:
Phase 1 (2019-2027)
Phase 1 includes a combination of open pit and underground mining for 9 years, producing a total of 1.4 million ounces of gold and 620 million pounds of copper. Ore will be fed to the site's process plant where the ore and a gold and copper concentrate will be produced.
Phase 2 (2028-2042)
Phase 2 involves underground mining for 15 years once Phase 1 is complete. Total production during Phase 2 is expected to be 1.7 million ounces of gold and 850 million pounds of copper.
The Skouries project is permitted under the same Environmental Impact Study (EIS) as the Olympias and Stratoni assets. The EIS was approved by the Greek Government in 2011. This environmental permit was challenged but was upheld by the Council of State, Greece's highest administrative court, in 2012 citing Eldorado's "investment was particularly advantageous for the national economy". [3]
Other permitting and licensing delays have also hampered the development of Skouries.
The majority of the local population has opposed the project, citing tremendous environmental impact, resulting to the complete desecration of tourism and agriculture in the area (those industries make up almost all financial activity in the area). The local population demonstrated over the years, even shutting down national roads, but the construction is still going on. [8]
Eldorado Gold Corporation is a Canadian company that owns and operates gold mines in Turkey, Greece and Canada. Since its merger with European Goldfields in 2011 the company has been pursuing the development of the Skouries mine, Olympias mine and Stratoni mine in Greece. The company previously developed and operated gold mines in China, Brazil and Mexico. Headquartered in Vancouver and listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges, Eldorado Gold has developed and operated assets from several merged companies HRC Developments Corporation, Afcan Mining Corporation, Sino Gold Mining, Brazauro Resources, Integra Gold, as well as European Goldfields.
Kennecott Utah Copper LLC (KUC), a division of Rio Tinto Group, is a mining, smelting, and refining company. Its corporate headquarters are located in South Jordan, Utah. Kennecott operates the Bingham Canyon Mine, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world in Bingham Canyon, Salt Lake County, Utah. The company was first formed in 1898 as the Boston Consolidated Mining Company. The current corporation was formed in 1989. The mine and associated smelter produce 1% of the world's copper.
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Copper mining in Arizona, a state of the United States, has been a major industry since the 19th century. In 2007 Arizona was the leading copper-producing state in the US, producing 750 thousand metric tons of copper, worth a record $5.54 billion. Arizona's copper production was 60% of the total for the United States. Copper mining also produces gold and silver as byproducts. Byproduct molybdenum from copper mining makes Arizona the nation's second-largest producer of that metal. Although copper mineralization was found by the earliest Spanish explorers of Arizona, the territory was remote, and copper could seldom be profitably mined and shipped. Early Spanish, Mexican, and American prospectors searched for gold and silver, and ignored copper. It was not until the completion of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1876 that copper became broadly economic to mine and ship to market.
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