Skourjes Gold Mine: Responsibility for Safe Ecological Production

Skourjes Gold Mine: Responsibility for Safe Ecological Production.

Hellenic Gold is one of the largest foreign direct investments in the country, bringing numerous benefits to the economy, society and the environment, and as a modern mining company, puts into practice the latest industry practices.

With an eye to the future, the company is planning and launching a project with state-of-the-art specifications to further reduce its environmental impact. The adoption of internationally recognized environmental protection practices optimizes production activities so that they leave only a positive footprint in those regions where gold mining operations are carried out.

New technologies to reduce environmental impact by 40%

Hellenic Gold’s mining projects use the best available technology to protect the environment, the most important of which is Dry Disposal, the most modern and safe method of managing mineral residues left over from ore processing.

In addition to the impressive water savings achieved by drying residues, this technology makes a decisive contribution to reducing the overall environmental impact by reducing storage volume, as well as increasing geotechnical safety, since the solid form of residues improves their geostatic storage, compared to initially wet ore.

Since the application of this technology in Skourjes (a mine in northern Greece), the required number of storage facilities has been reduced from two to one, which in practice means a reduction in the environmental impact of the project by 40%.

The new integrated waste and water management system for the Skurjes mine will cost 130 million euros and, in addition to the safe disposal of mining waste, also guarantees maximum protection and use of water.

Environmental responsibility and transparency in mining activities

Hellenic Gold, with a strong sense of responsibility towards the local community, has developed and implements the award-winning Environmental Monitoring Program, one of the most sophisticated environmental monitoring programs in Europe, which monitors and records, among others, indicators such as water and air quality, as well as other parameters in more than 400 control points, publishing real-time data on a dedicated public online platform.

Parallel recovery in practice

Hellenic Gold puts into practice parallel remediation by cleaning up and restoring the soil to its former natural state after the completion of the mining activity in the “worked out” areas. At the same time, the company is implementing one of the largest environmental remediation projects from previous mining activities to date. removing 3 million tons of mining waste.

The resulting free space is allocated to one of the largest nurseries in Europe, which is located in the ecologically restored zone of the Olympiada mine (Ολυμπιάδας), where 1,000,000 plants of endemic and local species are grown. Thanks to this, in addition to the needs of environmental restoration projects, the needs for seedlings of the local community and the respective municipalities are also met.

It is planned to combine underground and surface development in Skurjes. At the same time, the remains of minerals will be processed and reused both for filling underground galleries (using the stone filling technology) and for the needs of the quarry.

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