In the nineties a village in Costa Rica was populated by dreams of a promising future driven by the exploitation of a gold mine. Today there are only 27 inhabitants, left without hope.
EDITORIAL
An article on Nacion.com reports on the ups and downs of the gold mine project in Crucitas, in Costa Rica, which eventually fell through because environmental forces prevailed over sustainable development, leaving a long series of damages to the country in terms of confidence in the security of investments, tax losses, and mainly in the hopes of human beings who believed in and supported the mine being a catalyst for progress in the area. As usually happens, the only winners were the lawyers who litigated and continue litigating for both sides.
The concessionaire B2Gold expects to invest $44 million this year in the La Libertad, Santo Domingo and El Limón mines, while HEMCO SA plans to spend $14 million on the operation of the Bonanza mine.
During the period 2013-2014 B2Gold extracted 197,808 ounces from El Limon and La Libertad mines, while HEMCO achieved a total production of 113,770 ounces.
During 2011 the price of gold has continued to rise, and so far this year has recorded growth of 16%, which has encouraged mergers and acquisitions in this mining sector.
In the eleventh year of rising prices, gold reached the record value of $1,923.70 an ounce on September 6.
"BlackRock Inc., which manages natural resource funds for $35.750 million, estimated there could be more mergers and acquisitions in the gold mining sector after the price of gold rose to unprecedented levels", reported Bloomberg News.
El Salvador and Costa Rica say NO. Panama and Nicaragua say YES. Guatemala and Honduras are expected to decide soon.
Gold and copper prices are on the rise, and investors are eager to put money in extraction projects all over Central America.
But the governments of Central America have different opinions over this industry. While these projects are welcomed and authorized In Panama and Nicaragua, informal and formal moratoriums to the activity are being decreed in Costa Rica and El Salvador, stopping mining concessions under pressure from environmentalist groups. Meanwhile, in Guatemala and Honduras new projects are awaiting rules and regulations that will likely toughen environmental regulations for the mining industry.
The mining company Pacific Rim is confident that El Salvador will open its doors to exploit its gold deposits, but the tax barriers there have induced the company to look to Guatemala.
Guatemala "is open for business," said company president Thomas Shreke.
"At this point we are making our survey plan to Guatemala," said Shrek, who said he has a group of technicians to study the gold deposits that form part of a geological band that runs from Guatemala to Nicaragua.
Central Sun Mining Inc. reported results of a feasibility study on the Orosi Mine located in Nicaragua, including economic forecasts and independently prepared Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve estimates.
The Company is currently converting the Orosi Mine from a heap leach operation to a conventional milling operation. The Feasibility Study was commissioned by Scott Wilson Roscoe Postle Associates Inc.
Drilling has begun on the Company's Trebol property (42,193 hectares) located in northeastern Nicaragua, where epithermal gold mineralization is associated with a series of intensively silicified ridges.
The preliminary drill program is being designed to test the sub-surface continuity of the gold grades observed in selected trenches and to give geological and structural information on the geometry and controls on mineralization which will be used to further explore the property.
Nicaragua has a long tradition of gold-mining but is failing to cash in on the current boom in the price of the metal.
Until 60 years ago, Nicaragua was one of the world's leading gold producers but years of social conflict put the mining industry into the shade.
Now geologists and independent companies say the government should do much more to promote gold mining as a major plank for the development of the nation's economy.