Guyana Goldfields underground development hit by travel restriction

Canadian miner, Guyana Goldfields Inc yesterday announced that as a result of the coronavirus travel restrictions in and out of Guyana, the Company has temporarily suspended underground development at its 100% owned Aurora Gold Mine in Region Seven.

However open pit and processing plant operations are currently unaffected and are continuing as planned, the company said in a statement.

It stated that following the decision by the Government to close two major airports to all international air travel except for cargo flights, planes making technical stops and special authorised flights, it has decided to suspend underground development at the mine. The airport closures are proposed by the Government to be for 14 days effective last night.

The statement explained that underground development is affected by the international travel restrictions because the Company’s underground development contractor has a specialized workforce consisting mostly of expatriate personnel.

“In consultation with the Company, the contractor is suspending its operations and demobilizing all its on-site personnel, except for certain individuals who will remain on site temporarily to supervise the backfilling of certain open underground stopes”, the large-scale gold mining company said.

“Our priority is to the health and safety of our workers,” said Alan Pangbourne, Guyana Goldfields’ President and CEO.

“While we have no confirmed COVID-19 cases amongst our workforce, we are proactively taking steps to protect our people and our business during this global pandemic and some of the Company’s expatriate staff are already working remotely. We are well prepared to keep the Aurora open pit and processing plant running as previously disclosed, and maintaining critical safety and environmental activities, notwithstanding Guyana’s international travel ban.”