Chubut may amend mining law by year end

American silver’s navidad project
Chubut may amend mining law by year end

By Peter Johnson
Herald staff

The province of Chubut will likely introduce a key change to its mining law by the end of this year, Pan American Silver CEO Geoff Burns said on Thursday in Vancouver.
The change would enable the company to go ahead with its Navidad project in Chubut although as the provincial law stands at the moment it bans all openpit mining, as well as the use of cyanide in operations.
The company said earlier this year it hoped to see progress on legislative changes by mid-2010 that would allow the openpit mine to move ahead.
But Burns said on a conference call on Thursday, that he had met with the governor of Chubut in late June, and was pleased with the discussions that took place.
The details of the talks were confidential, ‘but I will say that I know the government is completely aware of our progress and schedules for the development of Navidad,‘ Burns said.
‘And I remain absolutely confident that the needed amendment to the current mining law that will allow us to proceed will be introduced before the end of this year.‘
The province of Chubut, especially the residents of the village of Esquel, have been outspoken opponents of mining in the province, to such a point that back in 2003 they halted the development of a gold mine owned then by Meridian Gold, which was to be developed not too far from the village.
This time round Panamerican may be luckier as the Navidad mine is located on the arid Patagonian plateau and is far away from the andean region where Esquel is located and which is becoming a growing tourist attraction.
Satellite maps of the Navidad area show no built up area for miles around it.

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Golden Peaks Acquires Indonesian Gold Exploration Permits

Golden Peaks to Acquire Gold Exploration Portfolio - Strategic Expansion Into Pacific Arc

Press Release Source: Golden Peaks Resources Ltd. On Tuesday November 2, 2010, 5:29 pm EDT

• Signs LOI to acquire 100% of Reliance Resources Limited which holds rights to five advanced gold tenements in eastern Indonesia covering 30,000 hectares
• Diversified portfolio offering an existing gold resource base, potential to add additional resources and significant exploration potential
• 43-101 resource report currently under way
• Early drilling planned using Reliance owner-operated rigs on identified targets; Multi-million dollar historical spend resulted in extensive database
• Reliance's board and exploration team has a track record of success in Indonesia

TSX: GL

VANCOUVER, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Golden Peaks Resources Limited ('Golden Peaks' or 'the Company') (TSX:GL.to - News) is pleased to report that the Company has signed a Letter of Intent (the "LOI") to acquire 100% of Reliance Resources Limited ("Reliance"), an unlisted Australian public company, which holds the rights to five advanced gold exploration permits on the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahera in eastern Indonesia.

The Reliance portfolio comprises three exploration projects on Sulawesi Island, with a JORC inferred resource, defined targets and the potential for near-term resource development and production; and two areas on the island of Halmahera, 70km north of Newcrest Mining's high-grade, profitable Gosowong gold mine. Reliance has the second largest landholding behind Newcrest on Halmahera. Figure 1 below, highlights the location of the Reliance properties in relation to major mines and magmatic arcs in the region.
To view Figure 1: Map of Indonesia highlighting magmatic arcs, major mines and Reliance properties, please visit: http://files.newswire.ca/365/November_2_2010_GL-Reliance.pdf
Reliance holds a majority (75-90%) interest in these five gold tenements, covering 30,000 hectares. All five projects are within close proximity to operating gold mines or defined resources with similar geological settings. Importantly, all projects have been converted to IUP tenements as required under the new Indonesian Mining Act (2009).
Reliance has chosen to focus on gold in Indonesia given the in-country experience and history of achievement of the directors and key technical personnel. Also, Reliance's projects have significant exploration potential and are located in a region that hosts some of the world's largest gold mining projects. Reliance has an established presence in Indonesia, with strong regional government and community ties.
The Company's Board and technical leadership team have been responsible for the development of Robust Resources Limited's (ASX:ROL.ax - News) highly prospective Romang Island project, also in Indonesia. Robust has some of the world's leading resource-sector institutional investors on its register, and the leadership team has been responsible for increasing the company's market capitalisation from $6.9 million in June 2008 to over $150 million today.  
Reliance has developed an extensive exploration program, currently underway, which includes:

• Resource extension drilling to JORC indicated / measured equivalent (Sulawesi)
• Reconnaissance geological work (mapping / trenching / sampling) to further define drill targets (Halmahera)
• Two owner-operated diamond drill rigs on order (four rigs budgeted for 2011)
• Expansion of the technical team and establishment of support offices on Sulawesi, Halmahera and a central administration and logistics office in Jakarta

The transaction contemplated under the LOI, will see the Company issue 62.7 million shares to the security holders of Reliance, with the result that the Reliance security holders will hold approximately 57% of the outstanding shares of the Company, post-acquisition. The proposed acquisition is subject to a number of conditions precedent, including TSX acceptance, due diligence conducted to the satisfaction of both companies, and approval by Golden Peaks shareholders.
Golden Peaks Chairman, Scott Emerson said: "This is a unique opportunity, Reliance's board and exploration team has a history of success in Indonesia and we look forward to welcoming Reliance shareholders and together continuing to build a gold company."
Reliance Resources Chairman, Gary Lewis said: "This is a great opportunity for Golden Peaks' shareholders to gain access to one of the world's most exciting gold exploration and production regions through the acquisition of these highly prospective projects. Reliance's assets are very high quality and offer near term production potential and further upside opportunity through an extensive exploration programme."
"Our team has a track record of success in Indonesia and a proven ability to identify and develop exploration assets that in turn deliver very solid returns for our shareholders. We are confident that this transaction presents a good opportunity for both Reliance's and Golden Peaks' shareholders." 

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Central Plateau region of Chubut

Central Plateau region of Chubut
According to exit delay
The exploratory results obtained by the Christmas silver project in the heart of the plateau Chubut, sowing hope among its people, to reverse the continuing population decline and procrastination.
ECONOMIC E4
 | Sunday October 10, 2010

The region of the central plateau of Chubut is an institutional space consists of four departments, which include a handful of municipalities and rural communes.
Since the middle of last century, the population of the vast region -33% of the province, has been decreasing at the same rate it has sheep production, and without this structure, so far, a plan of development of their productive potential that allows you to reverse this deterioration.
 
In mid 1980, there was a project that excited the people of Gastre (one of the main towns in the region), making them excited about a change of perspective: the National Atomic Energy Commission announced the decision to build on their near a radioactive waste reservoir to deposit there the remnants of the country's nuclear activity, but the initial enthusiasm of its inhabitants was soon overshadowed by the strong opposition movement, especially in the media and through awareness campaigns, who carried out the inhabitants of the cities of the Chubut, the coast, and the major capitals of Argentina.
Strong pressure was unleashed to close the project and the community continued to attend its slow but relentless decline, with the secret conviction that the project and it goes off, had been decided without their participation or decision.
Now, with the progress of exploration work on the Navidad project, one of the prospects of silver in the world, the illusions grow back, this time found the leaders and people, in the light of past experience with decision in what eventually happens in Gastre, Gan Gan and Telsen must be because they so choose, and not because the rest of the province-with successful economic development thanks to oil, fisheries and tourism-opine should continue to languish because it does not fit its strategic vision.
 
As part of the tasks to meet the Region of the Central Plateau since its inception in 2005, by municipalities and rural communities that comprise it, it goes in conjunction with the government of the province in search of a model for their development finally sustainable. It is in this framework through schedules of meetings and regular contact between community leaders, have been looking for results that are beneficial to each of the communities that make up the region.
Currently working in the joint production of a matrix, with different areas of development - developed by the provincial program "of what is going to live my people" - which at this stage is getting the input and participation of residents, officials and institutions that are settled in the Meseta.
The mining challenge
After the situation occurred in Esquel, in the early 2000s, which led to a plebiscite against mining in the area, Chubut progress in laws that suspended the permits to exploit ores, and every movement is detected exploratory is immediately confronted by anti-mining activists in major cities in Chubut.
With the advance of the Christmas project, and the tacit or implied shown by authorities and residents of the Shire, "Social Environment Forum members Patagonia, have visited the locations in the region, expressing their opposition to mining by acts and marches have been less than enthusiastic about the communities, despite extensive media coverage given to Trelew, Rawson and Comodoro Rivadavia.
 
Quartermasters, community presidents and leaders of the populations concerned, seem to have begun to tire of this constant foreign interference, mounted on a cutting environmental discourse that neither is responsible for the shortcomings, and raises serious alternatives for the future. "To develop we have to use what we have. It is as if the rest of Chubut Comodoro would prohibit get oil or Puerto Madryn Aluar exploitation, "said a village chairman at the last meeting of the Shire in Altars, in which there was a document which, among other things, states that "the need to reactivate the process initiated since the establishment of the Shire, is imposed to successfully promote this process the debate, agreement and sustained implementation of the main lines of action to confirm the specifics of production, employment and at the same time define what should be the new matrix production in the Central Plateau. "
The owners of the communities of the Shire, defined in this document, nine points according to frame the productive matrix:
- Taking care of water and environment improvement and its potential for productive use traditional and new production or mining activities throughout the region. 
 
- The strengthening of the livestock sector with particular emphasis on smallholder production.
- The development and utilization of wind energy.
- The development of the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources.
- The exploration and exploitation of minerals from first, second and third category.
- The development and exploitation of energy resources. 
- The development of a comprehensive tourism plan. 
- Strengthening the employment and trade opportunities. 
- The interaction between regions and regions of the province and neighboring provinces.
 
The right to decide
The leaders and people of the region of the central plateau of Chubut, are, well, standing in a difficult position of equilibrium.
Know-or at least they sense "that the development opportunity that gives mining today is perhaps the last opportunity to change the history of setbacks that have lived their communities, and will not miss that opportunity, and less by influence of third parties that do not even live among them. And at the same time, seek to ensure that the project is not a venture Christmas arrives, and the return of the years leave without having left nothing but a short time in which to live on the plateau was good and profitable .
In other words, they want to ensure that what could be a simple production site, to become the engine that takes the path of social development and community they crave.
And above all things, this may not want others to decide for them.
-----
AIMSA - by Roberto Mendoza. 

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