Media Interviews National Commission of the Environment

La Prensa:

Good morning, we would like to talk about the purpose of today’s meeting at the Commission

Rodrigo Esquivel:

Well, first of all is an invitation of the Environment Commission to Petaquilla Gold, to inform them more about this commission. Regarding the project that Petaquilla Gold is developing in the District of Donoso, known as Molejon and all the measurements the company is taking with the regard of the protection of the environment.

So we came here with the ones in charged, not only of the Molejon Plant, but also with the people in charged of the social responsibility programs, legal representatives of the company, to answer any questions the Environment Comission has, after we have made all the corresponding statements.

La Prensa:

What tare the advances on the project?

Rodrigo Esquivel:

The project entered its production and commercialization of gold phase as of January 2010; we currently have more than six months of being producing around six thousand ounces of gold per month and it’s a project that has a life span of about 10 years. Also, around this project are a few concessions that are being developed by the Petaquilla Gold subsidiary, Petaquilla Minerals, and we are carrying out surface surveys aimed to see if we can increment the gold reserves of our project.

La Prensa:

What about the dangers they said this could cause to the environment and to the people who live near the area?

Rodrigo Esquivel:

Well, we are here precisely, to explain to the Commission there has been an unjustified alarm. As all the people know, the media stated there had been a spill, which is completely false. It is true that it rains a lot during this time of year, but Petaquilla Gold counts with all the methods to prevent any spills and any harm to the environment. As a matter of fact, we currently occupy close to 40 hectares of a total of 100 authorized by the National Environment Authority, and it is precisely where we are developing a reforestation project of about 1000 hectares. We plant 10 trees per every tree we cut, so by the end of the project, we would have reforested 1000 hectares, when our project will only occupy 100 hectares at the most.

Journalist:

What is the current percentage of exploitation of the mine?

Rodrigo Esquivel:

Well, this is the first year of gold commercialization; as stated earlier, in January we began commercializing gold and silver and the mine has a life span of about ten years with the possibility of obtaining bigger reserves.

La Prensa:

Could you give us an example regarding what happened in Chile, could that happen here?

Rodrigo Esquivel:

Its two different kinds of mining, ours is an open mine project. The problem in Chile was in an underground mine, so this cannot happen in our project.

La Prensa:

So there would be no mayor consequences

Rodrigo Esquivel:

No because we don’t have tunnels that could collapse, our extraction is completely open

Eng. Carlos Salazar:

This topic is very technical and scientific; it is necessary that the topics are backed up by scientific evidence. There is no room for here for hear say. As you could see a few weeks ago, ANCON said they were going to run some tests to see if there was cyanide in the rivers, I drank water from the river, Fernando Rodriguez drank water from the river.

Kw Continente:

So you drank water from the river and nothing happened!

Eng. Carlos Salazar:

Here are Fernando Rodriguez and Dr. Arosemena; the three of us drank water from the river, even my son, who studies in Bulgaria bathed in the river with us, without any consequences. Now, people come saying there is turbidity and solids. The problem is that in Law or Architectural school, where most of this accusers study, they don’t teach chemistry, that is why they speak about pollution caused by suspended solids and turbidity. I would like to ask you a common knowledge question. How do rivers get when it rains?

Kw Continente:

Brown

Carlos Salazar:

Colored, turbid and with suspended solids. What are suspended solids?

Clay, sand, products of erosion as a consequence of sedimentation and deforestation

Now we have an affected area of 40 hectares, but if you entered the site, you would see the advancement of the agricultural border. In the country agriculture advances at a ratio of 50 to 60 thousand hectares per year and we are affecting only 40 hectares, so we are not the ones provoking the erosion or turbidity in the rivers. If you take a sample from the Chagres River in the middle of a storm you will get suspended solids and turbidity, so they have not discovered cold water or deserve a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for that. We have got to be more scientific and serious with these matters. They promised they would prove the presence of cyanide in the river and we dismissed that argument by drinking water from the three rivers, Molejon, Coclesito, and San Juan. Now they say Petaquilla pollutes because the rivers are turbid and have suspended solids. I reiterate my question, which river does not get turbid or have suspended solids when it rains? Show me one! Give me an example!

I would like to hear which are the toxins? The Copanic norm establishes the limits for the discharges of industrial effluents and provides a list of all the elements being studied, ranging from Cyanide, Carnia, Chromium, Zinc, Lead, Copper, etc; so if you have Iron, you have to prove the contaminants as well as the biological by products of human settlements also in the area. When I drank water from there, the greatest risk I took was getting parasites or catching a bacteria that would make me sick, but never by the presence of cyanide.

Cyanide kills you; it doesn’t make you sick on the long or short term, if you ingest cyanide you die. So when I drank the water I was certain nothing was going to happen to me. One of the directors of these environmentalist groups said she wanted proof from one of the directors of the company bathing in the rivers; not only three directors from the company went, I also took my son with me. We not only bathed there, we all drank the water.

Now they argue we were bathing at the headwaters, you saw the width of the river we were in, which headwater is that wide?

There is an inexcusable ignorance problem or malice behind all these statements, which are only looking to upset the community and then encourage them to rise up and create agitation; we keep an excellent communication with the community. With all the communities surrounding the projects, off course there will be people worried, and they have every reason to be, they are bombarded daily with misleading information, information not backed up by scientific evidence. If you say the river is polluted, bring me the evidence and tell me how high was the score for cyanide because if you say it marked cyanide levels above the law, you would be interviewing a dead man.

There is nothing else to discuss, the rivers are polluted or not, its like a women, she is either pregnant or not, she cant be kind of pregnant. Here you cant say the river is kind of polluted, if you say the river is polluted by the biological presence of men, cattle, dogs, pigs, then yes, it is polluted. That is another type of pollution, which could make me sick, fortunately I was seen by a doctor and have no illness.

I would also like to send my regards to aunt Mayin who was concerned thinking that I would die from drinking water from the river, as stated by her last Friday. Tell her, her nephew Carlitos is still here unharmed.

Kw Continente:

Engineer, please explain to us scientifically how you prevent the pollution of the rivers. What does the company do to prevent this kind of pollution?

Eng. Carlos Salazar:

Very good question; first of all, we have a chemical process. We must maintain a closed loop process, meaning our chemicals have to circulate within the same plant. When we are finished with the process we should not flush any water containing chemical contaminants, like cyanide or others mentioned in the copanic list to effluent waters. What should be verified is the natural presence.

A newspaper, I believe it was La Prensa, once published: “Is there cyanide in the rivers of Molejón?” Yes there is, as there is in the Chagres, in the Thames, and Danube, because cyanide is a natural occurrence, but how much is the question, 0.0001 milligrams per liter, 0.0005 milligrams per liter. The Copanic rules states that for industrial effluent the maximum discharge must be 0.2 milligrams per liter, so first we must know the rules, second we should understand the parameters, and third we should analyze and compare and not just freely say that the river is contaminated. Because it´s the same as a non-physician taking a look at you and saying you are diabetic without ever having taken a blood test, you are hypertensive without ever having measured your blood pressure. Although we do have a lot of those “experts” that go on radio and television prescribing and doing things like that.

We maintain a process with high levels of safety regarding management of the workplace prevention, occupational health and environmental safety, we have a process in which sodium cyanide re-circulates as soon as leaching time ends, and it is re-used . Then when you finish using the cyanide that you too are seeing out there, I believe that is in La Cascara and that is sent to all those friends of La Cascara on Face book you are also telling them the same thing that the CIAM said months ago, when they had a billboard next to the Social Security building for a year, another one in front of 99 and one in David Chiriquí, where they said we consume about 6 million cubic meters of water. Do you have any idea of how much 6 million cubic meters of water is? We consume 45 cubic meters per day hours is 1,080 which means 133,000 times less than what they say; 6 million cubic meters of water is four times what the entire Chilean industries consumes. So Petaquilla Gold, with it´s tiny project consumes around four times what the entire Chilean mining industry of Chile does. A mining country per excellence.

They say that we process 153,000 tons of mineral per day.
We process 2,200 tons. That is 71 point five times less. It means that instead of three ball mills we should have 214 or 220 ball mills.
Instead of 6 leaching tanks we should have 440 leaching tanks.
So first of all you have to know that this is studied, I did not stand at a corner for 15 minutes and was able to talk about the subject, and unfortunately those who have constant media access are those that have inaccurate information, either because of their ignorance or malice. Either of which must be corrected. They say that we generate 11 000 tons of solid waste daily. Tell me where do you hide 11 000 tons of solid waste, toxic waste, where would we hide it? When they don’t collect the trash in Panama and San Miguelito you can see it and smell it.
Furthermore, when you visit the area around the project you see all the people in the surrounding communities keep who livestock, raise pigs, chicken, fish, dogs, horses, they have their children bathe in rivers. They live a normal life. We do not download into the water sources, the products we use in the process of plants are re-circulated in a highly secure closed loop process.