UK’s determination to lobby for the troubled Armenian Amulsar mine

Internal correspondence released under a freedom of information (FOI) request shows how the UK Embassy in Yerevan sought to discuss Lydian International’s $400m Amulsar gold mine with the Armenian prime minister’s office in 2020.

The UK has supported Armenia’s attempts to clean up its mining industry – long associated with corruption, pollution and poor environmental standards – and Lydian, originally a Jersey-registered company, was a flagship project in this responsible mining drive.

Both the US and UK have ‘pressured’ Armenia’s new government during the confrontation over the mine, according to a confidential EU report obtained by openDemocracy in May 2020. Other records released by the UK Foreign Office showed regular records of meetings between the Jersey-registered mining company and the British Embassy in Armenia in 2013-2018.

The new Foreign Office correspondence released under FOI is largely redacted on grounds of commercial confidentiality and potential damage to international relations. But the documents show how, for example, in September 2020, UK embassy staff in Yerevan prepared to engage with the Armenian government on the controversial mine, using a new national policy initiative released a few days earlier.

“I understand that work on the National Transformation Strategy is being led at the strategic level by in the PM’s Office – so the strategy would be a useful area of conversation to lead with if we wanted to discuss Lydian with him,” read one email, dated 24 September 2020, as part of an email chain titled “Proposed Meetings”.

The Armenia Transformation Strategy 2050 is a policy initiative released by prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government on 21 September last year. It aims to foster dialogue and solutions for Armenia’s development towards 2050.

“It is the role of diplomatic missions to talk to host governments on a wide range of issues, including in support of UK businesses,” said an FCO spokesperson. The Armenian prime minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Inaction

Lydian has called the mine blockade illegal, and accused the Armenian government of “inaction” over the situation. Indeed, in March 2019, Lydian notified Armenia of a potential international arbitration dispute under British and Canadian bilateral investment treaties over what it calls an “ongoing campaign by the Armenian Government targeting Lydian’s investments in Armenia”.

To address concerns over environmental impacts, in August 2019 the Armenian government published a specially-commissioned technical report on Lydian’s environmental mitigation measures.

Though the report detailed significant areas where Lydian’s measures fell short, it did state that the possible impact on nearby water sources in Jermuk and Lake Sevan was nil. The government did not order a new environmental impact assessment to be drawn up – and Pashinyan gave the project a green light on the basis that “not even one litre of polluted water will reach [Lake] Sevan or Jermuk”.

In response, the company said it was “deeply disappointed” with the report, and noted that an independent auditor had found the company in “substantive conformance” with international standards.

A year later, protesters returned to the Amulsar site after the company hired a new private security firm and removed a trailer belonging to activists – with tense scenes between protesters and the private security team broadcast on national media as a result.

“During these protests, the police detained 10-20 people and opened administrative cases against them for refusing to obey police orders,” said Tehmine Yenoqan, an activist and resident of Gndevaz, who also noted that Lydian had opened defamation cases against activists for speaking publicly against the company.

“It makes us think: if we decide to come out and protest again, who will defend us – when they can lock activists up?” Yenoqyan continued. “The government and the prosecutor’s office is working in Lydian’s interests, and this pressure has an effect on people – although in the last two and a half years, of course, we’ve seen everything under the sun. That said, they’ve defeated the hardest resistance, and they’ll defeat what comes next.”

While prime minister Pashinyan appears to have approved the project, he has also sought to assuage those who are against the mine.

“There are both supporters and opponents of the exploitation of Amulsar in Armenia. And we must come to a balanced solution,” he said in Jermuk, a town located close to the mine site, in June 2021. “When the government develops a specific proposal, I will personally come, and we will discuss everything and give a solution to the issue together taking into account every detail.”

Foreign Office emails from the height of the crisis over the mine in 2018 have largely been redacted under international relations exemptions, but contain subject lines such as ‘Possible meeting with Armenian PM – urgent advice requested’, ‘Questions for the Ambassador’, ‘Meeting with Acting PM Pashinyan key points’ and ‘Readout of meeting with Lydian’.

Across the border in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the UK government recently supported opening up Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a brutal 44-day war last year, to mining by a UK company.

Monitoring the risk

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s investment in the project has since been terminated as a result of the company’s restructuring. An independent monitoring mechanism at the London-based multilateral development bank is currently considering whether its equity investment in Lydian was in line with its environmental and social policy.

“One of the keys to [the company’s] success is the dialogue which Lydian has conducted: with the Armenian government, local authorities, civil society and perhaps most crucially with the local communities,” said Judith Farnworth, then UK Ambassador to Armenia, at the project’s launch ceremony in 2016. “Through this engagement Lydian has provided assurances that it is committed to responsible mining, bringing economic and social benefits to Armenia whilst respecting the importance of environmental protection.”

But while the UK Foreign Office has lauded environmental and social standards at Amulsar, including local engagement, support for the mine has placed it in a tense confrontation with local residents and environmental campaigners. In 2018, 3,000 residents of Jermuk signed a petition against mineral mining in the area. The EBRD and World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, a former financial supporter of the project, have also received several complaints by local residents.

“The UK (and US) has taken a lot of flak from civil society, despite the project receiving funding from the World Bank and the EBRD,” reads a Foreign Office email from August 2020. “Our line to the various [parliamentary questions] and queries we’ve received is that British Embassies support British business in new markets and this is a normal part of our diplomatic work.

“In addition, on the current stand-off between the protesters and the company, we stress that we want all sides to engage in dialogue to overcome this impasse. The reality is that the case is likely to end in the courts.”

The correspondence also made reference to a ‘ministerial letter’ regarding Lydian. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has refused to release it.

Beyond the environmental impacts, however, Armenian journalists have also raised concerns about the land acquisition process at Amulsar.

In January 2021, Hetq, an Armenian investigative journalism outlet, published information regarding land sales at Gndevaz, the village where Lydian’s Amulsar mine site is based.

According to Hetq, a number of local public officials and their relatives had bought land plots for several hundred dollars each – mostly during early stages of exploration but also after – and then sold them at much higher sums to Lydian during the land acquisition process in 2015 and 2016.

This included the head of Gndevaz village council, who was later charged, together with his son, with abusing his official powers over the sale of a single land plot to Lydian. That case continues to be heard in court, and no final verdict has yet been made.

During the land acquisition process as a whole, Hetq reports, the company bought 278 plots of land – from 152 owners for an approximate total of $2.8m. Around 20 people, mostly local officials and their relatives, sold their land plots for a combined total of $2.1m to the company.

In an email to openDemocracy, Lydian’s Armenian branch stated that the “basis for land purchases was the location of the lands and not the status of the landowners.”

The email continued: “The implemented land acquisition by Lydian Armenia was unprecedented in Armenia and was in line with the international best standards and principles as well as the Armenian legislation.” Lydian added that it “ensured engagement with affected households” by holding meetings, providing updates and collecting feedback from residents.

“The same equal conditions and principles were used while evaluating all the lands, including the detailed evaluation of existing trees and plants on the land, their age and quantity, and fruit yield and not the market price of the lands only,” Lydian continued, stating that there were no complaints or court cases against the company over the land acquisition process.

The unfinished Amulsar mine was set to employ 750 people once online, with another 3,000 jobs created by local companies linked to the mining operation. Company projections place the number of its tax and royalty contributions to the Armenian state budget at €432 million through the ten-year operation of the mine.

“Any sector-specific projects which are directly related to the mining industry may present an increased risk of reputational damage,” reads an excerpt from an undated 2020 “country register” for Armenia provided by the Foreign Office.

“Staff in embassy are monitoring the risk,” the entry on Amulsar continued. “It has been escalated through the FCO but no actions have been recommended.”

Source: opendemocracy.net

Alba Mineral Resources – high gold grades at Clogau gold mine possible

Indicators of possible high gold grades identified at Alba Mineral’s Clogau-St David’s gold mine in Wales.

To date, ten holes intersecting the Main Lode Extension have been drilled for 1,475.6 metres as part of the Phase 2 surface drilling at Clogau which started back in April 2021. Phase 2 was designed to confirm the continuity of the westerly, potential 550-metre extension of the Main Lode which Alba identified in underground drilling in October 2020.

‘The significance of such a discovery is that the Main Lode is the source of most historic production at the Mine and if the continuity of the Main Lode Extension could be confirmed, this would become a primary zone for underground development and extraction,’ Alba said.

Following the drilling, the Main Lode Extension is now projected to have a strike extent of 585 metres, and a depth extent of 63 metres below surface at its widest point.

The mineral also known as ‘galena’ was identified in the intercept in JW008, which is an indicator for gold- bearing veins and in the past has been associated with high gold grades in the John Hughes lode, an offshoot from the Main Lode/Jack Williams target structure.

“The key objective of this second phase of surface drilling at Clogau-St David’s was to prove up the continuity of the Main Lode Extension we had identified during the drilling at the end of last year.

We have now delivered emphatically on that aim, by intersecting the Main Lode Extension on every one of the 10 holes we have drilled in this phase.  We are now projecting the Main Lode Extension to have a strike extent of 585 m and a depth extent of up to 63 m.  This is shaping up to be a significant target,” said Executive Chairman, George Frangeskides.

He added, ‘As we approach the end of this phase of drilling, we will be focusing next on a detailed technical and engineering evaluation of the most efficient access routes to the key gold targets we have identified through our drilling, namely the Llechfraith Lode, Main Lode Extension, Grandfathers Extension and 7-10 Extension.”

Alba has applied to the regulator, Natural Resources Wales, for permission to divert the drainage water from the current Llechfraith drainage adit and to dewater the lower workings in the Llechfraith Shaft to undertake underground drilling and bulk sampling from that zone.

Alba said it is confident that the application process for the Discharge and Transfer Permits will be concluded shortly and the permits issued. As and when the permits are issued, it is expected that the dewatering of the Llechfraith Shaft will take around two weeks, after which Alba’s technical team will be able to access the lower levels and assess the exposed lode.

The Company regards the Llechfraith Lode, which incorporates the Llechfraith Shaft, as ‘a key target’ for future mining operations.  At its deepest point, the Phase 1 drilling intersected the Llechfraith Lode structure 122 metres below the existing Llechfraith mine workings.

Alba’s initial geological modelling also indicates that the total tonnage estimation for this newly identified lode structure is between 24,000 to 27,000 tonnes in the Lower Lode alone.

Looking ahead, Alba said it remains focused on integrating the Phase 2 results into its geological model for Clogau, as well as cutting and assaying the core for gold content.

Recently Alba confirmed to investors that it had received all assay results on bulk sample concentrates produced at its pilot processing plant at Clogau with the final batch of results significantly exceeding results from the previous results announced back in May 2021.  These results returned grades up to 461 g/t, with concentrates produced from the Grandfathers Stope ranging from 86.8 g/t Au to 461 g/t Au with an average of 187 g/t Au.

The Company highlighted that these results ‘significantly exceed’ the assay results of bulk sample concentrates announced in May which had returned grades of 20.4 to 165.5 g/t Au.

Source: voxmarkets.co.uk

UK’s determination to lobby for the troubled Amulsar mine

But Amulsar has been at the centre of public controversy since Armenia’s 2018 “Velvet Revolution”, when it was blockaded by local residents and environmental campaigners over ecological and social impacts, forcing a standoff between international development banks that supported the mine, the Armenian government and those against the project. Both the US and UK have ‘pressured’ Armenia’s new government during the confrontation over the mine, according to a confidential EU report obtained by openDemocracy in May 2020. Other records released by the UK Foreign Office showed regular records of meetings between the Jersey-registered mining company and the British Embassy in Armenia in 2013-2018.

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office continues to lobby for a controversial gold-mining project in Armenia, openDemocracy can reveal. Internal correspondence released under a freedom of information (FOI) request shows how the UK Embassy in Yerevan sought to discuss Lydian International’s $400m Amulsar gold mine with the Armenian prime minister’s office in 2020.

Inaction

To address concerns over environmental impacts, in August 2019 the Armenian government published a specially-commissioned technical report on Lydian’s environmental mitigation measures. Though the report detailed significant areas where Lydian’s measures fell short, it did state that the possible impact on nearby water sources in Jermuk and Lake Sevan was nil. The government did not order a new environmental impact assessment to be drawn up – and Pashinyan gave the project a green light on the basis that “not even one litre of polluted water will reach [Lake] Sevan or Jermuk”. In response, the company said it was “deeply disappointed” with the report, and noted that an independent auditor had found the company in “substantive conformance” with international standards. A year later, protesters returned to the Amulsar site after the company hired a new private security firm and removed a trailer belonging to activists – with tense scenes between protesters and the private security team broadcast on national media as a result.

While prime minister Pashinyan appears to have approved the project, he has also sought to assuage those who are against the mine.

Previous correspondence obtained after an FOI request by openDemocracy suggested that the UK had lobbied closely for the Amulsar gold mine with Armenia’s former government, including monitoring the public statements of environmental activists in the country, and interceding in a previous dispute in 2013. Foreign Office emails from the height of the crisis over the mine in 2018 have largely been redacted under international relations exemptions, but contain subject lines such as ‘Possible meeting with Armenian PM – urgent advice requested’, ‘Questions for the Ambassador’, ‘Meeting with Acting PM Pashinyan key points’ and ‘Readout of meeting with Lydian’. Across the border in neighbouring Azerbaijan, the UK government recently supported opening up Nagorno-Karabakh, over which Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a brutal 44-day war last year, to mining by a UK company.

Monitoring the risk

The past 18 months has seen Lydian International go through corporate restructuring after the blockade prevented work from going ahead. As a result, the mining group is now owned by its three senior lenders, the investment firms Orion Resource Partners, Osisko Mining and Resource Capital Funds. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s investment in the project has since been terminated as a result of the company’s restructuring. An independent monitoring mechanism at the London-based multilateral development bank is currently considering whether its equity investment in Lydian was in line with its environmental and social policy.

The correspondence also made reference to a ‘ministerial letter’ regarding Lydian. The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office has refused to release it. Beyond the environmental impacts, however, Armenian journalists have also raised concerns about the land acquisition process at Amulsar. In January 2021, Hetq, an Armenian investigative journalism outlet, published information regarding land sales at Gndevaz, the village where Lydian’s Amulsar mine site is based. According to Hetq, a number of local public officials and their relatives had bought land plots for several hundred dollars each – mostly during early stages of exploration but also after – and then sold them at much higher sums to Lydian during the land acquisition process in 2015 and 2016. This included the head of Gndevaz village council, who was later charged, together with his son, with abusing his official powers over the sale of a single land plot to Lydian. That case continues to be heard in court, and no final verdict has yet been made. During the land acquisition process as a whole, Hetq reports, the company bought 278 plots of land – from 152 owners for an approximate total of $2.8m. Around 20 people, mostly local officials and their relatives, sold their land plots for a combined total of $2.1m to the company. In an email to openDemocracy, Lydian’s Armenian branch stated that the “basis for land purchases was the location of the lands and not the status of the landowners.”

“Staff in embassy are monitoring the risk,” the entry on Amulsar continued. “It has been escalated through the FCO but no actions have been recommended.”

Source: opendemocracy.net

Pensana’s rare earth processing hub

Early-stage development has started on the establishment of Pensana’s rare earth processing hub at the Saltend Chemicals Park in Humber, in the UK following the recent £15-million premium equity raise which was strongly supported by the Pensana’s major shareholders.

The Saltend plant will be the first major rare earth separation facility to be built in over a decade and the first to be located in a freeport. The final tax and customs regimes for the Humber Freeport are being finalised but are expected to take the form of an economic enterprise zone, providing a combination of benefits, enabling the rapid development of the project and frictionless trade with European and international customers, Pensana acclaims.

The company is aiming to establish Saltend as an attractive alternative for mining houses who may otherwise be limited to selling their products to China, having designed the facility to be easily adapted to cater for a range of rare earth feedstocks.

Importantly, for many miners around the world that are looking to access to the European and US supply chains, it is becoming increasingly clear that the planned European Union and UK carbon border taxation will mean it is no longer acceptable for manufacturers to source material extracted or processed unsustainably, Pensana notes.

Pensana is advancing the front-end engineering design (FEED) for the Saltend facility, as well as for its Longonjo rare earth mining project, both of which are expected to be finalised in October. Ongoing continuous process pilot plant runs to confirm equipment selection, sizing and specifications will continue through to September, reflecting the importance placed on confirmation of scalability of design, the company highlights. Pensana is working with international engineering group Wood, which has committed 40 experts from its Western Australian, UK and South African operations to work on the FEED for both projects.

The Saltend site is currently being prepared for construction by the pxGroup and is scheduled to be handed over in the next few months.

In Angola, Pensana is working closely with contractors and government officials to progress the Longonjo project, while strictly adhering to travel restrictions arising from the global pandemic, it notes.

“Demands for more secure and responsible supply chains, higher prices on carbon and policies such as the border carbon adjustments are setting the stage for greater transparency and traceability in minerals and metals – enablers of the global energy transition.

“The Humber is already the UK’s busiest port complex; the freeport status with its customs and tax incentives aimed at levelling up, provides the opportunity to establish the world’s first rare earth processing hub within an economic enterprise zone, with the benefits of frictionless trade with Europe and the rest of the world.

“We continue to work closely with our application for funding from the Automotive Transformation Fund, a long-term programme designed to enable the UK to build the world’s most comprehensive and compelling electrified vehicle supply chain, supporting over 160 000 jobs,” chairperson Paul Atherley says.

Source: miningweekly.com

UK Foreign Office criticised for supporting controversial gold mine in Armenia

In a fierce dispute between mine owners and local people in Armenia, the UK has weighed in – on the side of the international mining company.

-In 2018, Armenia underwent its “Velvet Revolution”, which saw a mass protest movement force a kleptocratic regime out of power
-Armenia’s revolution has had other effects, such as blockades over a flagship $400 million gold mining project run by mining company Lydian International
-New documents released under Freedom of Information laws show the UK Foreign Office’s private engagement in support of Lydian International
The UK Foreign Office has been criticised by a British MP and international campaigners for its support of a controversial mining company in Armenia, openDemocracy reports today.

New information released under the Freedom of Information Act shows frequent contacts between the UK Foreign Office and Lydian International, the company behind the flagship Amulsar gold mining project in the South Caucasus state. These releases shine a light on campaigners’ concerns about the ties between the mining company and the British embassy in Armenia.

The records, obtained by openDemocracy, reveal how British embassy staff in the Armenian capital Yerevan, including ambassadors, were in regular contact with Lydian International about its Amulsar gold mine from 2013 to 2018. They arranged presentations, seminars, meetings, working groups and project updates. For example, the records list 55 contacts between January and July 2018 between Lydian International and the embassy.

An index of internal communications for 2018, also obtained by openDemocracy, shows how the embassy has followed Amulsar since Armenia’s ‘Velvet Revolution’ put the $400 million mine at the forefront of the country’s politics.

The list details document titles such as “Lydian updates draft”, “Questions for the Ambassador”, “Meeting with Acting PM Pashinyan key points” and “Readout of meeting with Lydian”, recording, for example, seven internal embassy documents relating to Lydian produced in September 2018. That month, the Armenian government ordered an assessment of the effect the gold mining operation would have on the country’s water resources, as well as an independent review of Lydian’s environmental impact assessment.

Armenian environmental campaigners have raised concerns about this relationship, writing open letters about ambassadors’ conduct to the UK Foreign Office in 2013 and 2019.

Source: opendemocracy.net

Eurasia Mining lodges application for exploration at Tipil in Russia

UK-based Eurasia Mining has lodged an application seeking approval for a new exploration licence area (ELA) for Tipil, Russia.

The new Tipil licence extends over 24.5km² located adjacent to the current West Kytlim mining licence.

It contains nearly 17km of river course and sedimentary units known to host platinum group metal (PGM) deposits at the West Kytlim project.

According to the company, the license may be approved for exploration and later be converted to an uncontested production license.

The total exploration permit applied for and approved at the West Kytlim project is 95km², which includes the Flanks Area of 71km². Flanks Area already received approval for exploration in December.

Eurasia Mining chairman Schaffalitzky said: “In line with our strategy to expand the production volumes at West Kytlim, even as the 2019 mining season is ongoing, we are again utilising one of our company’s other core competencies, i.e our in-house expert knowledge of geology and the Russian licensing system, to further increase our presence in the West Kytlim area and aim to grow the mine to be the largest alluvial operation globally this year.

“We are now established as a dominant player in the PGM space in the region and look to developing an operation providing a low-cost PGM solution that is sustainable over potentially several decades.”

Both Tipil and Flanks areas are adjacent to the current 21km² Kluchiki Area, where mining operations are already undergoing.

Areas within 5km of West Kytlim have a special status under Russian subsoil licensing, allowing them to apply and seek approval without a public auction or inviting tender from third-party sources.

Eurasia Mining is a palladium, platinum, iridium, rhodium and gold production company, focused on Russian operations.

Source: mining-technology.com