Recognizing the growing demand for aggregate due to the domino effect of the nation’s trillion-dollar oil industry, Lakeram Harridat, a Guyanese lumberyard and sawmill developer who hails from Essequibo is poised to invest over $2.3B into a massive quarry business in the Mazaruni Mining District.
He has since sought to obtain a mining permit from the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to initiate the development of a modern, large-scale quarry to meet the existing and projected demand for aggregate and boulders. Based on the economics of the project, the developer hopes to make a whopping $10.8B turnover within a five-year period.
The project is centred at Grid Coordinates N 6.26450 W 58.58320 in the Mazaruni Mining District, north-central Guyana. The area is approximately 92Km south-west of the capital city of Georgetown and the closest town is Bartica, some 19 miles south to all distances along riverain routes.
The total area of disturbance within the project area comprises less than 58 acres, including mining pit (11.46 acres), crushing and screening plant (0.5 acres), sedimentation pond (1 X 2 acres), overburden stockpile (4 acre), and product stockpile (1 acre), haul Truck park (5.7 acres), mechanical workshop (5.7 acres), fuel depot (0.01 acres), dwellings (3.5 acres) and an office (1 acre). The remaining areas are for access roads and clearing trees to a suitable distance from structures for safety.
Guyana Standard understands that the mining pit will extend to a depth of 18m at the maximum and does not extend into the water table. The quarry will operate 5 days per week at single shifts of 8 hours to produce 260,000 – 300,000 tons of granite annually. The project document notes that typical drill, blast, load and haul cycles will be used.
Furthermore, the quarry and process plant will operate on 1 eight-hour shift, five days a week and is expected to employ 32 persons. This news agency understands that other personnel will be contracted to complete medical and environmental tasks, and for security purposes. The staffing at the quarry will include one site manager, one engineer, one safety professional, four policemen, one plant foreman, three plant operators, one plant labourer, and one scale operator.
The planned life of the phase 1 project is five years with an additional five years for post-closure monitoring.
