History of The Project
The mining project is organized by the Barrick Gold corporation, which planned in 2006 to invest US$1.5 billion over 20 years in it and projects an annual output of 750,000 ounces of gold and 30 million ounces of silver in the first five years.
Barrick has been planning the project for several years. It performed its first studies of the glaciers in 1991, purchased the Chañarcillo estate at the location via an affiliate (Empresa Nevada) in 1997, and published an environmental impact report in 2000, which was approved by COREMA, the regional environment authority, in 2001.
Barrick's plans for the project have changed over time. In June 2005, Barrick intended to commence building in January 2006, after responding to a questionnaire put to it by CONAMA, Chile's National Environmental Commission. In November 2005, however, the company published a report stating that it had scrapped its original plans, presented in December 2004, for "transplanting" three glaciers in order to gain access to the deposits beneath them, moving them to another glacier with which they were to bond. This change was publicly supported by Fernando González, the chairman of the council of Huasco Valley farmers.
In 2012, in the context of the costs of water usage in mining globally, Barrick's escalating costs for the Pascua Lama mine were reviewed. "As of November 1, 2012, Barrick had spent $3.7 billion on Pascua Lama. In all, it plans to invest between $8 and $8.5 billion to bring the project into production. But if the past is any guide, those costs could rise: the company's budget was just $3 billion in 2009".
Read more about this topic: Pascua Lama
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or project:
“The history of literature—take the net result of Tiraboshi, Warton, or Schlegel,—is a sum of a very few ideas, and of very few original tales,—all the rest being variation of these.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is no history of how bad became better.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In 1862 the congregation of the church forwarded the church bell to General Beauregard to be melted into cannon, “hoping that its gentle tones, that have so often called us to the House of God, may be transmuted into war’s resounding rhyme to repel the ruthless invader from the beautiful land God, in his goodness, has given us.””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)