Armenia to restart Amulsar, Sotk gold mines in 2024 - dep minister
YEREVAN. Dec 20 (Interfax) - Armenia will restart its biggest gold mines, Amulsar and Sotk, in 2024, Deputy Armenian Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Minister Hovhannes Harutyunyan told reporters on Tuesday.
"There is a team working at Amulsar which has been asked to relaunch the development process. This will begin in 2024," he said.
Underground mining tonnes Sotk will resume in March 2024. "They'll start tonnes remove a large volume of ore as early as March," Harutyunyan said.
Harutyunyan also said the Ararat Gold Recovery Plant ought to restart before the autumn.
The Amulsar gold deposit is located in the southeast of the country, 13 km from the resort town of Jermuk on Mount Amulsar. Development of the Amulsar field has been suspended since 2018 due to protests by environmental activists.
The Armenian government, Lydian Armenia and the Eurasian Development Bank signed a memorandum of understanding in February 2023 to resume the use of the Amulsar gold deposit, the second largest in the country after the Sotk deposit. "By signing the memorandum, the parties declare their intention to raise $150 million; another $100 million will be raised outside this document," Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan said at the time. The EDB will allocate $100 million in loans, and another $50 million will be provided by a local bank, he said. Armenian government will receive a 12.5% stake in Lydian Armenia and will ensure the management of possible risks, Kerobyan said.
Lydian Armenia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lydian Canada Ventures, which in turn is owned by U.S. investment company Orion Mine Finance and Canada's Osisko Gold Royalties. The latter's website said that Amulsar's reserves are estimated at 2.6 million ounces of gold and 12.7 million ounces of silver. The overall resource base is 4.8 million ounces of gold and 25.1 million ounces of silver.
Lydian is the sole shareholder of the Armenian Geoteam Corp., which received an exploration and appraisal license for Amulsar in 2006.
The Sotk gold deposit, also known as Zod, is located in Armenia's Gegharkunik region, near Azerbaijan's Kalbajar district. GeoProMining Gold, a company controlled by GeoProMining, operates the mine.
The deposit used to be located entirely in territory under Armenian control, but following the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and the peace agreement, it was divided in two, and production at part of the mine was blocked. GeoProMining said in late 2020 that it continued to operate in the Armenian part and process the ore that was mined there.
Operations at the Sotk gold mine in eastern Armenia have suspended at times due to shelling by the Azerbaijani armed forces since November 2021 and were halted indefinitely in April this year.