How much excise tax did Lafayette actually paid? How much waste did the Lafayette mine produced?

And other statistical data to prove how much deception this "responsible miner" have poised on the public.

Last March 2008, an environmentalist researcher forwarded to us the following data:


From Mines and Geosciences Bureau V:
Total haul of Lafayette from 2005 to date (March 3, 2008):
Gold - 159.80 kg
Silver - 488.84 kg
Copper concentrate - 8,841.60 dry metric tons
Zinc concentrate - 17,148.50 dmt
Total excise tax paid - PhP 36,118,555.54

Using the following hedge prices cited in Lafayette's Interim Report dated --
Gold - $ 405.74
Silvwr - $ 5.87
Copper conc - $ 1817
Zinc conc - $ 946

The toal Lafayette income is estimated at US$ 32.355 million. The exchange rate went as high as PhP 51 to the US $ in June 2006. By early March 2008, it is PhP 41. Using a
rate of PhP 40 to the US $, we get PhP 1.294 billion. Note that these figures are extremely conservative.

This implies that the excise tax is a measly 2.79%.

If we use average market prices of the metals between 2005 and 2007:
Gold - $ 550
Silver - $ 10
Copper conc - $ 5000
Zinc conc - $ 2500
The total Lafayette income is estimated at US$ 87.172 million. At PhP 40 to the US$ we get PhP 3.487 billion in Lafayette income.

The excise tax would then be a more measly 0.93%.


Let us estimate the waste produced by Lafayette:

Every ton of gold-silver ore has 2 grams of the precious metals.

The total mass of gold ans silver produced is 648.64 kilograms or 648,640 grams.

Therefore, the estimate of total waste from gold and silver production is 324,320 tons. This is a very conservative estimate again.

A cubic meter of solid waste is heavier than a cubic meter of water. It is safe to assume that a cubic meter of solid waste weighs more than a ton. Let us be conservative again by assuming that every cubic meter of solid waste weighs 3 tons.

This means that the 324,320 tons of Lafayette's solid waste would be about 100,000 cubic meters in volume. This can be piled on a hectare (10,000 sq meters) of land and its height would be 10 meters.


What about the liquid waste?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide: "Low grade ores are stacked into heaps and sprayed with cyanide solution (concentration about one kilogram NaCN per ton)."

If there are 324,320 tons of solid waste, then 324,320 kilograms or 324,320 liters of water was used.

This is equal to 324 cubic meters. This is something like a pond 10 m x 10 m in floor area filled with water 3.24 meters high.

These are all conservative estimates I can quite confidently say.

I also obtained data from the Bureau of Internal Revenue on the top ten tax-paying corporations in the Bicol Region. Lafayette is not one of them.

I wrote the Department of Labor and Employment to know if Lafayette is among the top ten employers in terms of number of personnel. I was given a copy of the master list and fuond out that Lafayette is not there.


If you think this next one is outdated, remember, this was forwarded in early March...

There is unpublicized report that Reynulfo Juan has been removed as DENR chief. One report says he was transferred to Region 3 (Cagayan Valley). A protege of presidential son Representative Datu Arroyo (Mark Fragata ?) is reportedly in Juan's stead. These are not heard yet over the radio or shown on tv.