Thailand's military government has lifted its controversial ban on Australian miner Kingsgate's gold mine in the country's north.
Sydney-based Kingsgate's share price soared on the news and was trading 34 per cent higher at 29.50?? in the late afternoon.
But the company says it will need to explore a number of matters before it decides whether to re-open the Chatree mine, 280 kilometres north of Bangkok.
Kingsgate's chairman Ross Smyth-Kirk said the Thai government had made clear it would not offer any monetary compensation for the "substantial" losses caused by the shutdown, which forced the sacking of more than 1000 Thai workers and devastated the economies of local communities straddling the mine.
"You just can't press a button and it all starts up again," he said, adding that workers would have to be found and many of them retrained.
Mr Smyth-Kirk said Kingsgate had been told the government might be willing to provide "meaningful benefits" other than money to compensate for the shutdown.
"We are in negotiations. It would take a lot of time and money to get the mine back up and running again," he said.
On the eve of the closure on December 31, Mr Smyth-Kirk said it would take an "ironclad guarantee" for his company to be allowed to operate without interruption, before it again invested in Thailand.
The government told Kingsgate it was lifting its "temporary suspension" of the mine, which is operated by the company's Akara Resources, shortly before Mr Smyth-Kirk and other Kingsgate representatives were scheduled to meet government officials in Bangkok.
The meeting was to discuss a claim by the company for compensation under the Australia-Thailand Free Trade Agreement.
The shutdown halted plans for the company to invest a further $US1 billion ($1.27 billion) to continue operating on adjacent leases for another 20 to 30 years and shocked business leaders in Thailand.
It was the first time Thailand's Prime Minister, Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army general who seized power in a 2014 coup, had used his sweeping dictatorial powers against a commercial business.
The mine had been the target of a sustained campaign by a small number of local land owners and environmentalists.
But Akara insisted that multiple studies, including by Thai government agencies, failed to produce any evidence the mine had damaged the surrounding environment, health of any workers or nearby residents since it opened in 2001.
Mr Smyth-Kirk said the Thai government never explained why it made the order that forced the closure.
"There were claims about health issues but they were all made-up lies," he said.
The Turnbull government, through officials of the Australian embassy in Bangkok, supported Kingsgate's attempts to avoid the mine's closure last year.
