Gold Fields to invest 140 million dollars

Gold Fields Ghana Limited said on Friday it would make a total investment of 140 million dollars in the next three years to construct a new leach pad, a mill and purchase equipment to boost its field and mining operations at Tarkwa and Damang.

The Company, which had already made investment of over 260 million dollars in developing and expanding its open cast and leach operations in the Tarkwa concessions and the purchase and re-opening of part of Teberebie, Abosso Goldfields Limited and the establishment of Gyata exploration company, said further investment was necessary to ensure efficient operations.

Dr. Toni Aubynn, Community and Public Affairs Manager of Gold Fields, told Journalists at a briefing on the activities of the Company in Accra, that the Company would, this year, make an estimated payment of 12.3 million dollars in royalties, National Reconstruction levy, duties and other statutory payments to government from its operations in the Tarkwa concessions alone.

Dr Aubynn said the Company had to go into open cast mining because Ghana had exhausted its high-grade deposits that would make it difficult to get an average grade of six grams of gold per tonne required in underground mining.

"There is no recognised high-grade deposits remaining in Ghana that are not be mined, a grade of three grams of gold per tonne, or less can be mined by open cast," he said, adding that opencast mining had long been used to mine low grade-gold deposits world wide.

He said opencast mining was not as dangerous as the picture usually painted, saying that rigorous environmental considerations were often followed in such operations to ensure sustainable exploitation of the resource in such a way that future generations would benefit from it.

Dr. Aubynn said the company was also alive to its social responsibility to the surrounding communities in which it operated and had carried out various development projects to make sure that the areas were assisted to ensure sustainable economic development. In this connection, he said, Gold Fields had employed more than 800 people from areas, where it had its operations, with direct involvement of local communities in the recruitment process. "Besides the company has also been providing better health, water, sanitation, educational facilities and village electrification and improvements in water supply," he said.

The Company, which produces about 4.5 million ounces of ore per annum, is owned by a multinational Company Gold Fields South Africa, with the Government of Ghana holding a ten per cent share.