Latest update February 3rd, 2025 7:00 AM
Latest News
- Govt. assures Exxon not hiding true oil data
- Sheriff Holdings distances self from convicted fraudster Ed Ahmad over suspicious Ogle land deal
- Trump says Americans could feel ‘pain’ in trade war with Mexico, Canada, China
- Soesdyke man killed after car crashes into truck
- Patterson pillories govt. for reckless spending of oil money
GGMC exploring new technology to improve recovery rate
The Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) is testing technologies that will reduce the environmental footprint of mining while improving recovery rates for miners.
Acting Commissioner of the GGMC, Newell Dennison
The Mineral Processing Unit of the GGMC has been reviewing and testing alternatives to existing methods. These technologies are aimed at reducing the dependence on mercury in the extraction of the minerals, particularly gold.
Acting Commissioner of the GGMC, Newell Dennison, told the Government Information Agency (GINA), in a recent interview, that “technologies such as circuits that have chemical and floatation requisites and cyanide circuits are all options being explored.”
He said, however, that the options are not readily available to every type of miner in the six mining districts across Guyana.
According to Dennison, officers of the GGMC are working in specific areas to introduce the technologies.
“They go to the miners in those districts, do testing to help them understand what kind of circuits can be applicable, what kind of methods they should be using in treating the material; washing it or separating, sifting, crushing, which lend to the process of extraction of the materials,” Dennison explained.
Noting that the technologies have been around, Dennison said the GGMC is adapting existing technologies to local situations.
The GGMC is currently in a ‘training of trainers’ stage of this exploration and has been collaborating with international agencies. Earlier this year, the entity benefited from training and demonstrations on these technologies from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Canadian International Resources and Development Institute (CIRDI).
GGMC’s Senior Environment Officer, Darcy Walrond, told GINA that earlier this year that the Commission was at Mahdia, Region Eight, conducting demonstrations where they used gold catcher which are all mercury-free technologies.
The technologies being examined are expected to significantly reduce the use of mercury in mining. Guyana signed onto the Minamata Convention on Mercury in 2013 in Japan. The convention is an international pact to protect the environment and health from the adverse effects of mercury.
More importantly, these technologies are expected to significantly improve the recovery rates of the mined mineral. Small to medium scale miners have been calling on the GGMC to provide the technical assistance in improving recovery rates. Currently, the recovery rate is 30 to 40 percent.
“With improved technologies you have improved recovery rates and when you have much higher recover rates then the use of mercury would dramatically reduce,” Walrond explained to GINA. These initiatives are part of the GGMC’s Action Plan aimed at modernising the mining sector. The Action Plan received approval from the Board of Directors of the GGMC in September and it is being implemented in phases.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
The PPP/C’s greatest liability
Peeping Tom Kaieteur News- One might have expected that a ruling party basking in the largesse of oil wealth would chart... more
OAS Secretary General Election and renewed OAS Consensus
Antiguan Barbudan Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- The upcoming election... more
Weekend Cartoon
