“Mining Watch Romania and Save Rosia Montana Campaign condemn the Romanian Government for granting the exploitation license for copper and gold at the Rovina deposit. The strategy to turn the Apuseni Mountains into a huge open pit-mining project rockets with the title granted to Carpathian Gold. The Ponta Government opens the way to new mining projects with devastating effects upon the environment, ignoring the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets against cyanide mining at Rosia Montana in the autumn of 2013,” the NGO said in a press release Thursday.
According to the former director of the Geological Institute of Romania, Stefan Marincea, the development of projects in the area would entail “the generation of no less than 2,900 hectares of mining waste”, the organization warned.
This mining project proposes the exploitation of 120 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of copper in huge open pits. Rovina could thus become the largest mining operation in Romania, the size of the two open pits,- 500 and 600 meters in diameter respectively, and depth between 300 and 400 meters, exceeding in size even the Rosia Montana project, the NGO said.
The organization added the procedures applied by the National Agency for Mineral Resources to manage and sell mineral deposits are secret and considered confidential information.
Carpathian Gold has obtained a 20-year mining license from the mineral resources agency for its gold mining project in Rovina, through its Samax Romania subsidiary.
“The granting of the License represents the first and most important step in the licensing process. Under Romanian law, the License will come into effect upon final review by several government departments and its publication in the official gazette. The Corporation will now proceed with an update to the Preliminary Economic Assessment of 2010 which will outline revised project costs and evaluate scalability options,” Carpathian Gold said in a statement.
Carpathian is an exploration and development company whose primary business is gold production at its 100% owned Riacho dos Machados Gold Project in Brazil.
it is also focused on advancing its exploration and development plans on its 100% owned Rovina Valley Au-CuProject located in Romania.
Samax Romania is registered in Baia Mare and posted revenues worth RON9.2 million and a profit of RON3.5 million in 2013. It employs 43 people, according to Finance Ministry’s data.
Rovina Valley is located in the Apuseni Mountains, about 20 kilometers from Rosia Montana.