Pani Gold Mine Nears Gold Production as Heap Leach Irrigation Begins
Tue 27 Jan 2026, 07:22 AM
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PT Merdeka Gold Resources Tbk (EMAS), a subsidiary of PT Merdeka Copper Gold Tbk (MDKA), announced that the Pani Gold Mine (PGM) began irrigating its heap leach pad on 27 January 2026. This milestone is one of the final steps toward first gold production, which is targeted for the first quarter of 2026.
In a heap leach process, crushed gold ore is stacked on a heap leach pad and irrigated with a chemical solution to dissolve the gold and silver contained in the ore. The precious-metal-rich solution (pregnant leach solution) is then routed to the ADR (Adsorption, Desorption, and Recovery) plant for extraction and refining, producing gold and silver in the form of dore bullion.
PGM’s ADR facility has completed commissioning and is ready to process the pregnant leach solution. President Director of PT Merdeka Gold Resources Tbk, Boyke Poerbaya Abidin, said that the start of heap leach irrigation confirms that Pani’s first gold production remains on track for the first quarter of this year.
“This project is not only a long-term value driver for investors, but is also expected to deliver tangible benefits to regional development—especially for the people of Pohuwato Regency—through increased local revenue (PAD), job creation, and the growth of local MSMEs,” he said, Tuesday (27/1/2026).
Alongside the initial heap leach development, the Company is also accelerating construction of a Carbon-in-Leach (CIL) processing facility with an installed capacity of up to 12 million tonnes of ore per year—brought forward from 2027 to 2026—which will support increases in PGM’s medium- to long-term gold production capacity. In terms of resources, the Pani Gold Mine has an Ore Reserve of roughly 4.8 million ounces of gold from a Mineral Resource Estimate of more than 7 million ounces.
Given this scale, Pani ranks among the largest primary gold deposits in Indonesia, further strengthening EMAS’s long-term growth fundamentals. With optimized heap leach operations and the development of the CIL facility, the Pani Gold Mine has the potential to produce more than 500,000 ounces of gold per year at peak output, positioning it as one of the largest gold mines in Indonesia and the Asia-Pacific
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