JOHANNESBURG Aug 10 (Reuters) – Gold Fields’ Ghana
operations, where gold is extracted from ore, have reopened
after being shut for over three weeks by the country’s
Environmental Protection Agency, the company said on Friday.
Gold Fields, which produces around 850,000 ounces globally
each quarter, said it lost about 15,000 ounces to the closure of
what are known as “heap leach facilities”. The company is the
world no. 4 bullion producer.
The operations are part of the company’s Tarkwa gold mine
and were shut on July 16 to comply with an EPA directive calling
for water discharges to be directed through a treatment plant.
“Although Gold Fields believes that Tarkwa was complying
with the prescribed conductivity levels in its water discharges,
it has nonetheless commissioned the construction of two water
treatment plants at the heap leach facilities,” the company said
in a statement.
(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Jon Herskovitz)
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