The decision made on Thursday took the form of $150 million in loan guarantees given to the company now called Lydian Canada Ventures. The latter needs the money to complete the construction of mining and smelting facilities at the massive Amulsar gold deposit in the country’s Vayots Dzor province.
The U.S. mission said that the multimillion-dollar project, which it has supported from the outset, “will create jobs and prosperity for the United States and Armenia.”
“Armenia is open for U.S. businesses, and the U.S. Embassy is proud to support as we work toward a more prosperous future together,” it added in an X post.
Lydian had planned to start open-pit operations at Amulsar and annually produce 210,000 ounces of gold, worth $550 million at current international prices, in late 2018. However, the planned operations were disrupted after several dozen environmental protesters blocked all roads leading to Amulsar following the “velvet revolution” of April-May 2018.
The protesters said that the project would wreak havoc on the environment. Lydian dismissed those claims, saying that it would use modern technology to prevent such damage.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government did not revoke Lydian’s mining licenses. But it refrained from using force to end the blockade despite then U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills’s repeated warnings that the scrapping of the project would discourage further U.S. investments in the Armenian economy.
“As a friend of Armenia, I fear that if this issue is not resolved soon it could put a large cloud over the attractiveness of Armenia as a place to do business,” Mills said in October 2018. He noted “the absence of evidence of significant violations of Armenian environmental laws” by Lydian.
Visiting Yerevan a few days later, a senior U.S. State Department official, George Kent, similarly warned that “it’s critical that contracts are upheld in order that Armenia can continue to attract investment.”
No other large-scale Western investment projects are known to have been implemented in Armenia since then.
