Country Greece Company Eldorado Gold | Products Gold, Copper Year of acquisition 2012 | |
Skouries mine megali panagia halkidiki
The Skouries mine is a high-grade gold-copper porphyry deposit located in the Halkidiki 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.
Contents
- Skouries mine megali panagia halkidiki
- Geology
- Development Approach
- Permitting
- Opposition to Development
- References
Geology
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.
Development Approach
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 dore 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.
Permitting
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".
Other permitting and licensing delays have also hampered the development of Skouries.
Opposition to Development
A small but vocal number of the local population has opposed the project, citing impacts to the environment, tourism and agriculture, resulting in demonstrations.