SSR Mining Inc (NASDAQ: SSRM) has estimated that last year’s horrible accident at Turkey’s Çöpler gold mine was not the company’s fault. The unfortunate occurrence killed nine people. Multiple company members, including international projects manager Iain Guille, were arrested afterward.
In a press release on Wednesday, the gold producer said an independent analysis found that the heap leach pad failure and ensuing landslide were most likely attributable to a “deeply rooted” engineering flaw that a third party was responsible for. The mining consulting firm Call & Nicholas, Inc completed the investigation.
“The review found that in the third-party engineered design, the assessment of the test data overestimated the shear strength properties of the liner system at the base of the heap leach,” SSR specified, “which inflated the calculated factor of safety values in the third-party engineered design.”
“This error resulted in insufficient shear strength along the liner interface to support the as-designed heap leach facility.”
A heap leach pad is a section of the mine where large quantities of ore are piled up and sprayed with a cyanide chemical solution. The gold contained in the ore then trickles down through the pile and gets collected in a drainage system at the base.
Executive Chairman, Rod Antal, says knowing that the incident was most probably not attributable SSR’s operations has brought the company team peace of mind.
SSR currently has no time estimate for when it will be able to get the mine restarted. The work involved with the cleanup is going to cost the company approximately US$275 million.
Major landslide at the Canadian SSR Mining’s Çöpler gold mine in Turkey. At least 9 mineworkers are trapped under the rubble. This came in the wake of their cyanide leak into the Euphrates river 1,5 years ago. #MurdererSSRmining @MiningWatchpic.twitter.com/KYSGty3Mmw
— Tarık Nejat Dinç (@TarikNejatDinc) February 13, 2024
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Expert says pad was situated too high
The heap leach pad facility at the Çöpler mine was placed at a questionable elevation, and when it failed structurally, a disastrous rockslide resulted. One expert from a Turkish university voiced criticism about its height after the incident occurred.
“We have determined that the heap leach, which is [supposed to be] a maximum of 150 metres in the world standards, reached 257 metres here, which is an unbelievable figure,” Hakan Ersoy said last February. He is a representative from the Karadeniz Technical University (KTÜ) Landslide Application and Research Center.
The fact that the mining operation sat at the top of a valley is another major factor that contributed to the disaster.
“There is also a valley height of 100 meters, so a 350-metre pyramid was formed,” Ersoy added. The expert researcher believes these factors are the primary drivers behind the land movements rapid acceleration and the exacerbation of the catastrophe.
SSR acquired the Çöpler mine through its US$1.7-billion-dollar acquisition of Alacer Gold in 2020.
rowan@mugglehead.com
