File photos of Eldorado Gold's mine in Brazil.
Eldorado Gold Corp. is reducing its 2013 capital budget by $240-million (U.S.) and cutting its exploration budget for the year as a result of declining gold prices.
The miner cut its overall capital plan for this year to $430-million from $670-million, focusing on mine site and brown fields exploration and delaying a full expansion of its Kisladag project in Turkey.
It will also spend $51-million for exploration in 2013 instead of the planned $98.5-million and expects 2014 exploration spending to be at or below the new level.
Chief executive Paul Wright says the company revised the plan to ensure it can develop its business based on a gold price of $1,250 an ounce for the foreseeable future.
At Kisladag, it still plans to replace the existing mining fleet with larger loading and haulage equipment and continue with the electrification of the mine.
It will also continue work on an amended Environmental Impact Assessment application for the full expansion, which it expects to get approval for by year end.
Eldorado will also delay its Skouries, Perama and Certej projects by about a year.
Eldorado is a gold producing, exploration and development company with operations in Turkey, China, Greece, Brazil and Romania.