Veladero mine | |
State/Province: | San Juan Province |
Country: | Argentina |
Owner: | Barrick Gold |
Products: | Gold |
The Veladero mine is a gold mine in Argentina.[1] The mine is located in the north-western part of Argentina in San Juan Province.[1] The mine has estimated reserves of 10 million oz of gold.[1] It is operated by Barrick Gold.The mine uses heap leach to extract gold and silver, which is a process that uses cyanide to dissolve the gold and mercury to extract it from the cyanide slurry. This mine has had at least 5 catastrophic spills into the environment contaminating 5 rivers. In 2007, Barrick Gold installed the world's highest-altitude wind turbine at the Veladero mine at nearly 4,200m elevation.[2]