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Bluebird Merchant Ventures recently announced the progression of plans to develop the Kochang and Gubong mines in South Korea; two gold ore sites that last operated in the 1970s. Scarlett Evans spoke to Bluebird COO Charles Barclay about the process of reviving operations at these historic mines, and what the future of South Korean mining might look like.
The Asian-focused resource development group, in a joint venture with Australian exploration firm Southern Gold, has submitted applications for permits to develop the sites. The start of operations is awaiting feasibility reports, and Bluebird has voiced its confidence that production will begin during the fourth quarter of 2019.
Scarlett Evans (SE): What attracted you to these sites?
Charles Barclay (CB): After the Philippines became a virtual no-go area for mining for quite a few months, we had the opportunity to look at projects elsewhere with a group of professionals who wanted to open old mines.
Through information gathered from friends and industry members, we heard South Korea had some mines that would be worth looking at and, based on that, we did a deal with Southern Gold and made an agreement to develop some old mines and fund the projects. The whole synergy between us and Southern Gold is that they wanted us to do the exploration to help them hit targets in South Korea and we selected these two to start the process.
We operate on the basis that our company, which has been heavily involved in reopening old mines all over the world in sites from South Africa to Fiji to Vietnam, work to improve mines. That’s the basis on which we looked at the projects in South Korea. We needed to look at why a project closed, when it closed, how much it produced at its time of operation – all of these are important factors in determining if we want to take on the mine looking forward.
For the rest of this article: https://www.mining-technology.com/features/redeveloping-historic-mines-in-south-korea/