Govt. continues to pursue mercury free mining

Dec 22, 2017 News

– Small and medium scale miners still to come on board

The Government of Guyana continues to promote the abolition of the use of mercury in mining. However, many in the mining industry are still to abort mercury.
Addressing the National Assembly, recently, Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, noted that mercury-free mining has been embraced by President David Granger as an urgent goal in achieving a Green Economy.
However, Trotman said that demonstrations and outreaches alone have not been sufficient to rally a force of change in the sector at the small and medium scale levels.
As such, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) will invest in alternative technologies. Trotman said that some of these technologies are already familiar to the miners from previously staged settings.
Trotman said that those measures and the Ministry’s work in collaboration with Conservation International, Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) and the Guyana Woman’s Miner’s Organization (GWMO) are anticipated to “provide credibility and acceptance of our efforts.”
Further, Trotman said that the rehabilitation of the Linden Research and Development Facility has commenced and will be completed in early 2018. He said that that facility will add tremendous value in the area of testing mercury free circuits.
Earlier this year, GGDMA said it will not support the complete discontinuation of the use of the chemical since it will have significant impacts on the sector and, by extension, the economy.
GGDMA stated that it is not in support of ending the legal trade of the substance “since it will have significant impacts on the mining sector and the economy.”
The GGDMA further noted that even though significant efforts have been made to reduce mercury use, no better alternative has been demonstrated to replace the widely-used substance.
In 2013, the Correia Mining Company became one of the first local gold mining companies to adopt the use of mercury-free technology to recover gold by using an apparatus called the shaking table.
However, the shaking table is costly and a very large investment for small and medium scale miners, who currently dominate the industry.
In Guyana, mercury is mainly used in the gold mining industry. Granger had pointed at the recent conference that the artisanal, small- and medium-scale gold-mining sector is significant to the national economy.
The sector produced over 700,000 ounces of gold or 12.1% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2016. Some 67.7% of total gold production came from more than 3,000 artisanal, small- and medium-scale mining enterprises.
The sector employs more than 18,000 persons directly and supports the livelihoods of more than 100,000 persons indirectly and is the country’s single largest foreign exchange earner.