Petaquilla and the sustainable model

The Petaquilla mine, the biggest gold-mining project in Central America , has proven, in less than a year of social work, to be the most successful model of sustainable mining in existence.

The project began in 2005 when the Panamian government approved it through its Ministerio de Comercio e Industrias (MICI, Commerce and Industry Ministry) and put into motion the development plan presented by Petaquillla Minerals.

One of the first phases of the project was the construction of the Molejón Gold Deposit. 1,450 cubic meters of concrete were poured (15,151 bags of cement), making it the biggest concrete construction in rural Panama.

It was a monolithic or consistent filling, over 55 hours of continuous work that implied aggregate use, which allowed the used mass to harden in the indicated time.

“To obtain this objective, CEMEX supported us, the company had the responsibility of emptying a minimum of 5,450 cubic meters of concrete during five months, a operation that only compares to those associated with the labours of Autoridad del Canal de Panamá” said engineer Rafael Eysseric, Vice presidente de Ingeniería, Planificación y Diseño de Petaquilla Gold, S.A.

“As part of this construction process other concrete pouring was done on a smaller scale, but when combined they could raise the cement and aggregates demand to an additional 3 thousand 500 cubic metres .” Eysseric added.

Tremendous coordination was required to construct a project of this magnitude in the isolated region of Donoso, due to the significant logistical limitations that existed. These limitations were overcome through coordination among the production plant, the concrete supplier and Petaquilla's engineering team.

This construction phase could be extended according to the needs that come up during the operation. However the project plans to start operations in the last quarter of 2007 and reach a 120 thousand ounce per year production. At the moment everything is going as projected.

Actually 400 workers are directly working on the plant construction. Indirect employment opportunities are generated through sporadic denizen contracts in Colón, Coclé and Veraguas; as a consequence the economy is boosted in the project's influence area.

Such a feat put Petaquilla at the vanguard of mining, without a doubt a source of pride to Panama.