During a press conference a week ago, Vartan Ayvazyan had spoken rather harshly about the “Ararat Gold Extraction Company” (AGEC) and the “Global Gold” company. The minister accused AGEC of hiding a ton of gold, not making the payments for using the area, using too much cyan and other violations. According to the minister, the “Global Gold” company is conducting an illegal investigation on the uranium and gold resources near the Getik river. The two companies responded to this quickly. The AGEC representatives contradicted the minister, saying that they get 100,000,000 tons of soil by extracting one ton of gold. It’s possible to hide the gold, but impossible to hide that much soil. Besides that, the company representatives added that they had appealed to the court and it had considered the accusations of hiding the gold as invalid. On June 21, it was “Global Gold” company’s turn to respond.
Director of the company Ashot Poghosyan met with members of the economic journalists’ club and said that their company wasn’t researching uranium resources in Armenia, rather they were simply conducting research on the mine pit as a whole in order to find out how much gold and uranium there are in the mine and if it’s really worth extracting. According to Mr. Poghosyan, “Global Gold” has the right to do that because it has the license.
“We are dealing with the lithosphere. We can’t just extract the gold and silver and leave the uranium for later. We are going to research the mine as a whole in order to find out what there is. If we find uranium, we are obligated to let the ministry know about that within 14 days. The company is still in the first stage in Getik.”
If the company finds uranium in Getik, Armenia’s energy will develop. Besides that, we know that uranium is of strategic importance. The discovery of uranium would help implement the project aimed towards creating Armenia’s second nuclear power plant. The current nuclear power plant functions with the uranium imported from Russia.
“If we have uranium resources, we can send the mine and get uranium imports in exchange. We definitely won’t produce bombs. If we find uranium, it’ll be good for Armenia by all means,” say the company representatives.
The “Global Gold” company knows that they need a license from the government to extract the uranium. They will immediately apply to the government to get a license if they discover uranium at Getik. A. Poghosyan had difficulty in answering to the question as to why the Minister of Ecology Vartan Ayvazyan was so “careful”. He knows that the minister must take care of the country’s ecology, but he doesn’t understand his attitude towards the company.
“We haven’t received any warnings from the Ministry of Ecology to this day. I have only heard about them from the press,” says Mr. Poghosyan.
It’s hard to say why Vartan Ayvazyan is only expressing his concerns about the companies through the means of the press. “168 Hours” is waiting for the minister’s announcements, especially since he told “168 Hours” that he would get acquainted with the comments made by AGEC and respond. He asked us not to get ahead of ourselves.
The AGEC, also known as the Indian “First Dynasty Mines Armenia” company, has been extracting gold in the Sodk mine since 2002, while the American “Global Gold” company has been conducting research on mines in the Gegharkunik and Aragotsnotni regions of Armenia since 2004. The directors of the companies say that they haven’t made any profit to this day and have made a lot of investments. They consider that normal in the mine industry. During the Soviet era, a company could get profit after seven years. But the two companies are certain that they will get profit sooner than that.
The fact that the two companies will soon end the investigation, the first stage of investments and move on to extracting gold and getting profit is rather interesting. While we’re waiting, we can predict some things based on what Vartan Ayvazyan said. Isn’t this the reason the minister is “worried” and is sending “messages”? Let’s recall that the AGEC representatives were hinting that the ministry was expecting something from them. Besides that, it’s quite possible that someone has an eye on the profit to be gained by the two companies and that is why they are in the center of Ayvazyan’s attention.