EcoLur
“Dear Mr Asryan,
With reference to your letter dated 24 June 2013 addressed to the Bank and relating to Dundee Precious Metals Kapan CO CJSC, please find below responses to your questions.
1) Having signed a revolving credit facility with Dundee Precious Metals earlier this year, the Bank is not currently negotiating any new project with Dundee Precious Metals or Deno Gold in Armenia.
2) If Deno Gold decides to proceed with the open pit development and requests EBRD financing for that, it will be subject to a separate environmental and social due diligence, international ES1A, public consultation process and a clear action plan to mitigate any impacts.
3) Change of the name is a part of Dundee's global rebranding exercise and does not result in any softer lending criteria.
4) As part of the project appraisal works prior to agreeing the revolver facility with Dundee Precious Metals, Bank staff carried out a visit and high level review of the Deno Gold operations, considering the environmental, health and safety and social risks present, and the management systems that are in place to minimise such risks. Subsequently, an independent consultant has completed a thorough review of the operations and a series of recommendations have been made and are being implemented to bring the operations into compliance with the Bank's Environmental and Social Policy. During this latter assessment, the consultant carried out a series of meetings with local representatives, including the mayors of Kapan, Ghanush and Norashniek, and representatives of local CSOs such as Vogehi and Khustup.
With specific reference to the previous project with Deno Gold which was fully repaid in 2010, the Bank retained an independent consultant to regularly monitor the works carried out. This monitoring recorded substantial improvements in the company's environmental and health and safety management systems and capabilities throughout the project life cycle. Public consultation was carried out during the implementation of this project and a detailed Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan was actioned. This included community meetings to discuss the environmental baseline studies that were undertaken at that time. These meetings took place in a number of locations such as Geghanush, Syunik and Khalaj.
Yours sincerely,
Eric Rasmussen
Director Natural Resources”
Read the request of "Ecological Security and Democracy Development" NGO here.
July 24, 2013 at 16:05