Santiago, Chile January 28 1998
South American Gold and Copper Company Limited Announces Further Details on Catedral/Rino Cement ProjectSantiago, Chile - Compañia Minera Catedral ("CMC"), a 50.1% owned subsidiary of South American Gold and Copper Company Limited ("SAGC")(TSE symbol SAG), announced today that a new generation process will be used in the design and operation of its planned cement manufacturing facility to be located near Rancagua, Chile, approximately 80 kilometers south of Santiago, that is part of its Catedral/Rino Cement Project. Cement capacity will be 1,450,000 metric tons per year. The new process being used in the new plant's design by Penta Engineering Corp. of St. Louis, Missouri, a leading design and engineering firm specializing in cement plant facilities, which is heading up the Feasibility Study on the Project, incorporates a flash dryer that uses the waste heat from the pyro-processing system to drive off water from the slurry feed. Limestone will be ground in a ball mill at the Rino quarry site and then transported 100 km via slurry pipeline to the cement plant location at Rancagua. While most cement plants use five-stage preheaters, the advanced preheater being incorporated into he design plans has only two stages. The two-stage preheater uses the offgas from a pre-calciner and a rotary kiln. Direct transportation costs of the limestone from the Rino quarry site to the plant site will be less than US $1.00 per equivalent metric ton of cement. The new process is highly fuel efficient and is also being utilized in a significant plant expansion by the Cement Division of the Rugby Group plc at Rugby, England. The Rugby plant also utilizes a 100 kilometer limestone slurry pipeline for the transportation of limestone from its quarry site to its plant site at Rugby. The Rugby slurry pipeline has been in operation for more than 20 years and has operated reliably and efficiently, according to the Rugby plant officials. John Macfadyen, Senior Consultant, Penta Engineering Corp., stated, "The CMC plant in Chile is designed to use every available Btu. The direct manufacturing cost per metric ton of finished cement, including raw material transportation costs, is to remain near US $35.00 per metric ton.". Stephen W. Houghton, President and Chief Executive Officer of SAGC, stated, "on February 1, 1998, Penta Engineering Corp. will have completed the Phase 1 feasibility study on the project, which will incorporate preliminary engineering designs for the new cement manufacturing facility, as well as capital cost and plant and slurry pipeline operating costs. There are a number of factors which provide the Catedral/Rino Cement Project with very favorable economics:
The favorable economics of
the Catedral/Rino Cement Project are attracting the attention
of several international cement companies and financial institutions
with whom we have had discussions and will be holding further
meetings in February, on completion of the Phase I Feasibility
Study.
SAGC is a mineral exploration company with extensive gold properties in Chile and Peru. Its common shares are listed on The Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol SAG. For further information in Canada
and the US, and visit our website at http://www.sagc.com. For further information in Santiago,
Chile,
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