LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Gold exploration and development company GoldStone Resources announced on Friday that the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Agency has granted the environmental permit for its Homase South Pit within the AKHM project.
The AIM-traded firm described the permit as a key requirement for it to proceed towards construction.

Its board said it was a "major achievement" in the development of the AKHM project, which would be GoldStone's first mine in its "highly prospective" 83.24 square kilometre total licence area.

With the environmental permit now granted, the directors said they expected mining and construction operations at the project to begin imminently, with an estimated timeline for the first gold pour being within two months.

The permit, along with the 10-year mining lease which received parliamentary ratification on 22 December, were a prerequisite for procedural operational permits, which were expected to be granted on a "timely" basis.

As it announced on 3 December, GoldStone said it would also now make an application to the Environmental Protection Agency for the environmental permit to be expanded to also cover the whole of its expanded mining lease at AKHM, including the Homase North and Homase Central pits.

"We have been eagerly awaiting receipt of this permit so that we can start construction and mining," said chief executive officer Emma Priestley.

"The permitting process has taken approximately six months longer than what we initially anticipated, but we are delighted to now be in a position to commence the next stage of operations at the AKHM Project."

At 1433 GMT, shares in GoldStone Resources were up 25.52% at 13.05p.

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