Guyana Goldfields Inc. forced to suspend underground development at AGM
THE Guyana Goldfields Inc. announced that as a result of travel restrictions in and out of Guyana, the company has temporarily suspended underground development at its 100 per cent-owned Aurora Gold Mine located in Guyana.

In a press release on Wednesday, the company said that open pit and processing plant operations are currently unaffected and are continuing as planned.

It said that following the decision by the Government of Guyana to close its airports to all international air travel except for cargo flights, planes making technical stops and special authorised flights, the company has decided to suspend underground development at the mine. It noted that the airport closure proposed by the government is expected to be 14 days, effective Wednesday at midnight and reflect Guyana’s effort to contain the global outbreak of COVID-19.

The company said that the underground development is affected by the international travel restrictions as that development’s contractor has a specialised workforce consisting mostly of expatriate personnel. “In consultation with the company, the contractor is suspending its operations and demobilising 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 release 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.”

The company will continue to monitor the situation and will provide further updates if necessary as events unfold, it said.