Centerra Gold Inc. has received environmental approvals from Turkish authorities to resume full operations at a gold mine where mercury was detected last year, the company said Wednesday.

The Toronto-based miner said in a news release that it intends to fully restart production at the Oksut mine in Turkiye “in the coming weeks,” after the Turkish Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change approved its Environment Impact Assessment.

The company said it also has received regulatory approval for a mercury abatement retrofit in one area of the mine.

Gold dore bar production was suspended at the Oksut mine last March after mercury was detected in the mine’s adsorption-desorption recovery plant. In January, the company said the cost of the abatement work was “on target” at $5 million.

The mine is located approximately 180 kilometres from the site of two devastating earthquakes that killed tens of thousands of people in Turkiye and Syria in February, but the facility was not damaged in the disaster and operations were not affected, the company said. 

The Oksut is one of two mines operated by Centerra, with the other in British Columbia.

Centerra was up 9.53 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange at as of late Wednesday morning, trading at $8.16.