Calcatreu Gold project, Ñorquincó Department, Río Negro Province, Argentinai

Regional Level Types
Calcatreu Gold project	Project
Ñorquincó Department	Department
Río Negro Province	Province
Argentina	Country

Epithermal Jurassic prospect.
Vein 49, Nelson, Castro Sur, Belen and Viuda de Castro zones.

Calcatreu is a gold and silver deposit located on the Patagonian plateau in the southeast of the Province of Río Negro, Argentina, 60 km south of the city of Ingeniero Jacobacci and San Carlos de Bariloche being the city with the largest population near the deposit. The exploitation of the project is promoted by sectors of the provincial government but encounters resistance from different social organizations for the use of cyanide, the use of large quantities of water for the extraction and accumulation of heavy metals, fearing possible contamination.

The proposed exploitation by cyanide leaching was made in 1998 by the company Aquiline Resources Incorporated, which owns the rights, which it later sold in its entirety to the Canadian Pan American Silver Corporation. The activities were suspended due to the rejection of numerous social organizations, among which the Council for the Development of Indigenous Communities (CODECI) of Río Negro was considered the most affected, for affecting ancestral rights to land ownership. Activities were partially paralyzed when, in July 2005, the Río Negro Legislature approved by a large majority Provincial Law No. 3981, which prohibited the use of mercury and cyanide in mining activities, repealed on December 29, 2011.

As of November 2003, the project had eleven vein systems (gold and silver) outlined, including a large vein 2km long and 20 meters wide. The deposit is low sulphidation adalaria gold. In March 2007 a feasibility study done by Snowden Australia through its subsidiary Calcatreu Gold Project resulted in a conventional open-pit mining operation with a nominal range of 750,000 tonnes per year. The total mineral potential is 3.5 million with gold densities of 3.86 grams/ton and 33.22 grams/ton silver. And an effective cost of $ 280.83 dollars per ounce of gold. As of March 22, 2012, gold was trading at 1,637 dollars per ounce. In 2017 it was reported that owners of the mining companies met with national government representatives led by Esteban Bullrich to agree on the change of school program contents, to eliminate references to the contamination caused by mega-mining.

Pan American Silver also owns the Christmas Project 140 km from Calcatreu on the border with the province of Chubut. In 2017, it emerged that several mining companies, including Calcatreu, aspire to change the school programs since they do not want that students in the primary and secondary levels are taught that they pollute, they achieved a dialogue table in which the Ministry of Education led by Esteban Bullrich and the Ministry of Mining advanced on the subject, giving talks at the Buenos Aires National School.

In 2018, Patagonia Gold acquired the mining assets from Pan American Silver for $ 15 million, as part of an exchange between the two companies for the COSE project in Santa Cruz. The buyer, owned by Carlos Miguens (former owner of Quilmes), plans to begin extraction in 2020, with an initial reserve of one million ounces and a projection of 1.2 billion dollars. Governor Alberto Weretilneck himself endorsed the reactivation of the project in mid-2017, which was terminated at the time by the law against the use of cyanide promoted by Magdalena Odarda when she was a provincial legislator.

Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcatreu
Wikidata ID:	Q6400386

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