Eti Bakır A.Ş. opened Cerattepe Copper Mine occupying the agenda for a long time, to visit for press members. Ünsal Arkadaş, General Coordinator of the company, answered questions about the mine which was aimed to start production in November, clarified all subjects that are subjected to critics. Arkadaş stated that all rules are strictly be followed, said that they want to narrow the field of mining and thus they gave up 2.000 hectares of 4.406 hectares. Arkadaş stated “There are settlement areas, water resources and tourism fields in this 2.000 hectares we gave up, I am also from Artvin and I think about this place as much as everyone, I also think about my country, we did our official application to Ministry of Energy General Directorate of Mining Affairs in last year, we will not do mining in this 2.000 hectares of area and also even not exploration, In this 4.406 hectares of area, we are doing mining only in 15 hectares of area in closed space.”
Arkadaş who stated that there is no gold projects in Cerattepe, said that, “There will not be any other facility in Cerattepe except copper mining and transportation, because there will not be an enrichment operation, there will not be a pool too, after mining, it will be transported to Samsun and it will be processed in there, it is not possible that non-existed cyanide pool can harm Artvin. Arkadaş who stated that the mining has 14 years of life, said that 20,000 tons of pure copper in total will be provided from this mine, annual copper consuming of Turkey is 450.000 tons, its production, on the other hand, is 100,000 tons, we import cooper costing 4 billion of USD annually, the values of copper that our mining will produce, is 1.5 billion USD with its current exchange, we are going to prevent import taking 1.5 billion USD at least. “
Arkadaş “who stressed that it is not true that 50 thousand of trees will be cut in Cerattepe, and one of the 100 biggest forest in the world will be disappeared, said that only 3.500 trees will be cut, surface soil in construction field shall be stored by slipping, after operations will be done, the soil will be laid out and the region will be afforested, we will plant 10 times of 3,500 trees, these claims are because of not knowing the truth and sourced by instinct to protect Artvin. Arkadaş who told that protests for mining have no base, mentioned that as you can see, mining and water sources are at different mountains, working does not harm surface water, rest assured for everyone. Arkadaş who answered the claims that thousands of trucks will harm fauna, said that trucks will go to underground as entering into a highway, they will transport mining to telpher.”
