The company Serbia Zijin Mining submitted to the Ministry of Environmental Protection at the end of June a request for a decision on the need for an environmental impact assessment of the project to exploit ore from the Čukaru Peki copper and gold deposits (Upper Zone 2).
The copper and gold deposit Čukaru Peki Upper zone Ore bodies 1 and 2 is located near the village of Brestovac near Bor, reports eKapija.
The subject of the request is the underground exploitation of copper ore, with a capacity of 5,000 tons per day, or 1.65 million tons per year.
Excavation will be carried out on the basis of the Elaboration on resources and reserves of copper and gold in the Čukaru Peki upper zone deposit (ore bodies 1 and 2), which was prepared last summer by the Institute for Mining and Metallurgy, and according to which in ore body 2 in the upper zone they find balance reserves of 15,585,343 tons of wet ore.
According to the project, it is planned to excavate the deposit up to the level of k-380 meters (m), that is, to a depth of about 7,600 m.
All mining processes will be based on the Main mining project for the exploitation of ore from the Čukaru Peki copper and gold deposit – upper zone, which was also developed by the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, in 2021.
The document also mentions that the investor plans to deposit copper ore at the existing tailings dump, where it will be elevated to enable the disposal of 1.95 million cubic meters (m3) of ore and 500,000 m3 of tailings.
As the reason for this solution, it is stated that the flotation capacity is lower than the mining capacity of the pit, and therefore the copper ore will be deposited at the mentioned landfill until a new flotation plant is built, which will later use the deposited ore, which is planned for 2026.
