{"id":1137699,"date":"2019-09-11T10:40:31","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T15:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1001624"},"modified":"2019-09-11T10:40:31","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T15:40:31","slug":"southern-gold-bluebird-granted-permit-for-first-major-new-mine-in-south-korea-in-over-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1137699","title":{"rendered":"Southern Gold, Bluebird granted permit for first major new mine in South Korea in over 15 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian explorer Southern Gold (ASX: SAU) and Asia-focused Bluebird Merchant Ventures (LON: BMW) reached on Wednesday a key milestone after the South Korean government granted the joint venture (JV) partners a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southerngold.com.au\/uploads\/announcements\/401\/20190910%20ASX%20Gubong%20Permit%20to%20Develop%20Approved.pdf\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">permit to develop their Gubong gold mine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The project, south of Seoul, will become the first major new gold operation to open in the country in over 15 years. <\/p>\n<p>The last time South Korea granted a development license was to Ivanhoe Mines, in the late 1990s, for its Eunsan gold deposit.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Project consists of a number of historical underground mines within about 20km of each other, including the Gubong mine area itself, which was South Korea&#8217;s second largest gold operation until 1971, when it closed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cCompared to other regulatory<br \/>\nsystems, such as we see in Australia, this is an extremely rapid approval<br \/>\nprocess, taking less than one year since its initial submission,\u201d Southern Gold<br \/>\nmanaging director, Simon Mitchell, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southerngold.com.au\/uploads\/announcements\/401\/20190910%20ASX%20Gubong%20Permit%20to%20Develop%20Approved.pdf\">said<br \/>\nin a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis bodes well to other future potential<br \/>\ndevelopments that will be in the company\u2019s pipeline down the track,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>The project consists of five<br \/>\nhistorical underground mines within about 20km of each other, including the<br \/>\nGubong mine area itself. That operation was&nbsp;South Korea&#8217;s&nbsp;largest<br \/>\ngold producer from 1930-1943, during the Japanese occupation. <\/p>\n<p>First production at the reopened Gubon<br \/>\nis expected in 2020,<\/p>\n<p>Southern Gold and Bluebird each<br \/>\nhold a 50% equity interest in Singaporean company Gubong Project JV Co Ltd<br \/>\nwhich in turn holds 100% of South Korean company Gubong Project Co Ltd.<\/p>\n<p>A similar corporate JV arrangement is in place for the Kochang project, which is still in the approval process for its permit to develop.<\/p>\n<p>Rising gold prices are making it<br \/>\nmuch more attractive to reopen old mines instead of exploring for, and developing,<br \/>\nnew ones.<\/p>\n<p>Gubon closed in 1971, when gold was trading at $40 an ounce.\u00a0Kochang end operations in 1975, when gold was at $140 an ounce. The metal was trading at $1,494 on Thursday early afternoon, up 16% this year after rising for the past four months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joint venture partners are the first foreign companies granted a development permit since the late 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[369,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137702,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137699\/revisions\/1137702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}