Rovina gold-copper mine

Euro Sun Mining recently provided a corporate update and comment on the current strategy regarding development of the ten million gold equivalent ounce Rovina Valley Project.

The Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) outlines a robust project producing on average 108,000 oz of gold and 13.3 million lbs of copper per year for 12 years (139,000 Aueq ounces per annum) in phase one of development exploiting the Colnic deposit initially. Colnic currently hosts only 29% of the exploitable resources at Rovina Valley Project.

Initial CAPEX for Colnic is estimated at USD 339 million. This is primarily allocated at USD 33 million for capitalized pre-stripping and USD 264 million for the 7.2 million ton per annum processing plant. As the project will be built with dry stack tailings, not wet tailings, the sustaining CAPEX will be quite low for operations of this size. Typically, significant sustaining capital is allocated to tailings dam lifts throughout the life of mine, which are not the case in a dry stack operation.

Rovina Valley Project has been designed to be one of the most environmentally responsible gold projects globally due to the lack of wet tailings facility and without the use of cyanide anywhere in the project. In order to meet these strict standards, the decision for dry stack tailings with no cyanide was undertaken by both the company and the Government of Romania. The company would have a lower capital budget and lower operating costs if a traditional wet tailings facility were to be built. Using cyanide in a closed circuit would have generated higher recoveries and therefore higher tax revenues for the government.

“Rovina is a clear example of a project that’s meets today’s investor mandate for Environmental Social Governance (ESG) companies in which to invest. A conscientious decision was made by both Euro Sun and Romania to make this a better environmentally and socially responsible project and not just to maximize profitability at the expense of all stakeholders,” President & Chief Executive Officer G. Scott Moore stated.

 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Location & access

The Rovina Valley Project covers 27.68 km² in west-central Romania, approximately 300 km northwest of the capital city of Bucharest. This historic mining district known as the ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ is one of the largest gold-producing areas in Europe where it is estimated more than 55 Moz of gold have been produced since the Roman period (ca 2000 yrs ago).

The Rovina Valley property is accessible year-round via a paved two-lane highway from the historic gold mining town of Brad followed by secondary paved roads which pass through the town of Criscior and onward to the village of Bucuresci.

 

Mineral resources

The measured & indicated mineral resources of 10.84 million ounces of gold equivalent are based on three porphyry deposits that define a north-northeast trend over a distance of 7.5 km. The Rovina Porphyry is the northern-most deposit, followed by the Colnic Porphyry, and the Ciresata Porphyry located the furthest south.

 

Background

In November 2018, the Mining License for the Rovina Valley Project granted to SAMAX Romania srl (100% owned by Euro Sun Mining), was fully approved by six senior cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister of Romania.

In addition to key permitting activities, the company is completing an optimized mine plan which will form the basis of a new PEA, expected to be completed by the end of Q1 2019. This study will be further developed into the Bankable Feasibility Study targeted for completion by year-end.