Gold Fields targets 1 mln oz in S. America

[miningmx.com] — GOLD Fields, the world’s fourth-largest gold producer, aims to produce one million ounces of the precious metal per year in South America
by 2015, the company’s regional chief said on Wednesday.

Currently, just 10 percent of South African miner Gold Fields’ output comes from South America, but it is moving ahead with key projects in the region.

“We have committed to a very ambitious goal for 2015, to put 1 million ounces of gold in production,” the general manager of South American operations, Juan Luis Kruger, said at the Perumin convention in the southern city of Arequipa.

“We are actively exploring other parts of Peru, especially in the south, and in Chile, we see quite optimistic results,” he said.

Gold Fields’ key Chucapaca mine in the region, a $750m joint venture with Peru’s Buenaventura , is on track to start construction by the second quarter of 2013 and
initiate operations in 2015, Kruger said.

The mine has estimated reserves of 5.6 million ounces of gold and is expected to produce 500,000 ounces of gold per year starting in the second quarter of 2015.