English
"Romaltyn" isn't yielding to the decision of the Local Council of Baia Mare and has announced that it rules out the relocation of the plant for continuing its activity, as this would involve far too high economic costs, making the project completely unfeasible.
The former "Aurul" plant, currently held by Romaltyn, will not be moved, in spite of the decision of the Local Council to change the intended use of the plot of land that the plant is located on, one of the reasons being the far too high economic costs, of about 30 million dollars, according to statements by the officials of the company.
They stressed that the relocation of the plant, following the decision of the Local Council, is impossible, both due to legal reasons which concern the existence of the exploitation license, as well as due to economic reasons.
"Romaltyn has a license for the current positioning. Furthermore, the current lease exploitation license number 1/1998 and extended successively according to the law through addenda until 2017 regulates the industrial nature of the perimeter where the plant is located" a recent press release of Romaltyn states.
The option of moving the plant is out of the question, the representatives of Romaltyn say. They stressed the fact that in the event of the relocation, the duration of the project would increase by about four years.
According to the press release of the people of "Romaltyn", the relocation of the plant would involve redoing the entire exploitation project and restarting the entire legal process for securing the construction and operation permits, an aspect which would lead to an increase in costs and in the duration of the project.
"The relocation of an activity also involves far greater costs than those for a new construction. In the case of Romaltyn, our estimates indicate an increase of the costs by approximately 30 million dollars in the event of the relocation, which would make the project completely unfeasible", the representatives of the company also mentioned.
The mayor of Baia Mare, Cătălin Cherecheş, one of the supporters of the project of the Local Council, made several clarifications on the issue, claiming that according to current data, the operation of the Romaltyn plant in that region is illegal.
"I've noticed that there is a certain position that Romaltyn has when it comes to relocating the production base outside the city.
The central environmental authorities and the Ministry of the Environment currently have an assessment of the cross-border impact of this investment. It is the most important step that such an investment needs to make. The authorities of Hungary and Ukraine will need to be consulted, and depending on the results of this cross-border impact study they will proceed with the environmental evaluation of this investment", Cătălin Cherecheş, the mayor of Baia Mare said.
He also said, in a statement for the press, that " the people at Romaltyn want the annulment of the decision of the local council by which this location was designated as an area for services and homes instead of an area which endangers public health".
Also, the president of the Legal Department of Baia Mare, Aurica Todoran, said during the council meeting that it has requested information from the Agency for Mineral Resources about the license of Romaltyn, because " it is unclear whether the placement which the license was given for is precisely that of the headquarters of the company in Baia Mare."
Through the Government Decision no. 437 of June 3rd, published in the Official Gazette of June 4th, 2013, has approved the concession license no. 1/1998 for the exploitation of the tailing ponds of Săsar (MEDA), and respectively the Central Flotation concluded between the National Agency for Mineral Resources and Aurul Baia Mare, currently Romaltyn Mining.
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Romaltyn Mining SRL and Romaltyn Exploration SRL were part of the portfolio of the biggest Russian gold producer, Polyus Gold, until 2012, when they were acquired by SAT&Company, owned by Kazakhstan.
According to press sources, the amount of the deal was approximately 20 million dollars.
Polyus Gold is owned by Onexim Grup, a giant company of Mikhail Prokhorov, the third richest Russian oligarch and former competitor of Vladimir Putin for the presidency in the 2011 elections.
Romaltyn Mining is the former SC Aurul SA, later renamed to Transgold, involved in the environmental incident of 2000, when approximately 100,000 cubic meters of cyanide and waste leaked from the Bozânta tailing pond into the Tisa river.
The "Aurul" project debuted on May 9th, 1990, when the principle agreement was signed between Esmeralda Ranger Exploration (Australia), Compania Natională Remin Baia Mare and Geomin SA Bucureşti.
The new company, SC Aurul SA had the following shareholder structure: Esmeralda - 50%, Compania Remin - 44.5%, Geomin S.A. Bucureşti - 5%, others - 0.5%, and the stated line of business was the extraction of non-ferrous metals from flotation tailings stored around the city of Baia Mare.
Press sources show that after the Australian company showed up in Maramureş, Remin was lead by three key people (Ioan Hudrea, Iuliu Chiorean and Staicu Bălănescu), which later became members of the management structure of Transgold, the company which was created after SC Aurul SA was shut down, following the environmental disaster of 2000.
In 2003, deputy Vlad Hogea, quoting archive documents from the mining units which created the Meda pond, which was "drained" by Transgold, was saying that 45 tons of gold and 300 tons of silver were mined in the area.
Because Transgold refused to process in Baia Mare the ore resulting from the successive processing of the tailings store, and transported it to England instead, without the Romanian customs authorities having the technical capabilities to check the real contents of the alloy, the Romanian state came out a loser from a deal in which it came in with raw materials (the annual royalty which Romania received was 2% of the output stated by Transgold, after the ore was processed in England), according to the political statement made by deputy Vlad Hogea.
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Private equity fund Fribourg Investments, controlled by the former prime minister of the Republic of Moldova, Ion Sturza, this year bought 49% of the equity of mining company "ROMALTYN Limited", which owns the mining exploitation plant of Baia Mare, also taking control of the operations of the project for the recycling of the mining waste.
Following this deal, Fribourg Investments announced that it intends to invest 20 million dollars in the exploitation and recycling of this waste. The project was scheduled to take place over a period of approximately five years and included the elimination of approximately 8.5 million of mining waste, by resuming the operation of re-treatment of the tailings, the recovery of non-ferrous metals, namely gold and silver, as well as the technological rehabilitation of the perimeter of approximately 165 hectares in the region of Baia Mare.
Restarting the operations of "ROMALTYN", scheduled to take place in Q4 2013, requires investments of over 40 million dollars, which need to cover the complete retooling of the plant, the replacement of the pipes, the completion of the water treatment station at the tailing pond, the rebuilding of the insulation of the tailing pond and the set up of new retention pockets, operations which were partially completed between 2007 and 2012.
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