LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Condor Gold said on Thursday that it has made "significant progress" meeting the terms of its environmental permit for the development and exploitation of gold from the La India open pit in Nicaragua.
The AIM-trade firm said the permit was also for the associated mine site infrastructure, and the construction and operation of a processing plant with capacity of up to 2,800 tonnes per day, for a new gold mine at the project.

Condor has 1.12 million ounces of gold open pit mineral resources permitted for extraction, inclusive of a mineral reserve of 6.9 million tonnes at three grams of gold per tonne for 675,000 ounces of gold.

The company said it had acquired 85% of the land within the permitted La India open pit mine site infrastructure, including the key areas of the processing plant, tailings storage facility, open pit, waste dump area, and explosive magazine.

It said the tailings storage facility and two water retention ponds were being fully designed by Tierra Group, with 40% of the engineering designs completed.

The design of the site-wide water balance, including a surface water management plan, was underway, and had been awarded to SRK Consulting UK.

Preliminary designs for the layout of the mine site infrastructure including, in some detail, the designs for the location of the processing plant had also been completed, with mine and waste dump schedules for a number of mining scenarios finished as well.

The power studies had been progressed, the board said, and several meetings held with the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

"Condor has made excellent progress advancing the La India Project to a construction decision and has acquired 85% of the land within the permitted La India open pit mine site infrastructure, including the location of the processing plant, tailings storage facility, open pit, waste dump area, explosive magazine, office and accommodation blocks and other key component areas required for the mine," said chairman and chief executive officer Mark Child.

"This significantly de-risks the project."

Child said solid progress had also been made with the engineering studies.

"It remains our intention to buy the remainder of the land this year and commence site preparation, while significantly advancing the engineering studies and placing a deposit on a processing plant."

At 1325 BST, shares in Condor Gold were up 2.8% at 51.4p.

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