SANTO DOMINGO.- The president of the GoldQuest company, Luis Santana, explained to the members of the Dominican Association of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (Codia) the benefits of the "Los Romeros" mining project that would be developed in San Juan.
Engineer Santana explained that the Romero project, to be developed in the northern part of San Juan, is a polymetallic deposit (contains copper, gold, silver and zinc) with resources of 3 million ounces of gold equivalent, and would be an underground mine. 150 meters deep with a design that will dispense with the use of chemicals such as cyanide, since its processing would be up to a concentration level of metals in a copper concentrate rich in gold and silver.
“The mine, far from being a threat to the waters and life in San Juan, could represent the only viable solution that exists today for the serious deterioration that the basin presents, because we have the disposition, the resources and the technology to we become protectors of that basin”, he affirmed.
Exploitation benefits
During a presentation as an invited speaker on the panel "Responsible Mining, its contribution to the economic development of the country", Santana highlighted the economic and social contributions that they would offer to San Juan if the mine is approved.
“Romero offers the province a 13% share of the mine's net income, that means RD$5.4 billion for the province, in addition to the US$365 million that the government would earn; In addition to this, for the construction phase there would be a thousand vacancies and, in operations, more than 3 thousand between direct and indirect, actions that will also be reinforced with social plans for the community, ”he assured.
Mining activity
Within the framework of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Codia, the engineer Osiris De Len highlighted the importance of sustainable mining activity in the Dominican Republic, when comparing the situation in the San Juan basin where a mining activity has not yet begun.
“When we approach a mining operation around Bonao, we don't find a desert there as people say; you will see a forest in the entire perimeter area of the operation; because a reforestation program is carried out in the intervened areas and four, five or six years later you see an immense forest in an area that was intervened by a mining operation, very different from what we see in San Juan”, he pointed out.
Osiris De Len, Luis Santana together with Miguel Daz, Vice Minister of Energy and Mines, Susana Gautreau de Windt, from the Mining and Oil Chamber, and the environmentalist Eleuterio Martnez, were the speakers on the panel "Responsible mining: its contribution to the economic development of the country”, within the framework of a series of activities carried out by Codia, in its anniversary week.