SOURCE http://www.mch.cl / El Mercuro, Chile
(El Mercurio) A new difficulty will be faced Codelco to be able to realize the Llurimagua project, an initiative that the miner promotes in Ecuador hand in hand with that country’s state mining company, Enami EP. This, after a negative report recently presented by Ecuador’s national Comptroller general.
Last Friday, the local institution announced the draft of a document on the project with which Codelco seeks to realize its long-awaited internationalization. This report could even call into question the initiative, since this would incur a suspension of the mining concession, after the deadlines for the annual activity report and the annual investment plan were not presented. In addition, the companies (Enami EP and Codelco) appear to have carried out mining activities before having the corresponding environmental license.
In addition, according to Ecuadorian media, another of the points criticized has to do with the delay to constitute the business model that is considered a mixed composition, in which Enami EP would have 51% and Codelco 49%. By the end of 2017 this aspect was not yet defined.
In the draft submitted by the Ecuadorian institution, reference is also made to the fact that the mining company did not provide more details regarding the characteristics of the deposit and the minerals present in it. This made it difficult for the State of Ecuador to know the benefit of advancing exploitation.
Pollution and cutting of trees
In environmental terms, the contamination of some water sources has been discovered, besides the use of these without the corresponding authorization, as well as the illegal logging of more than 60 trees present in the Llurimagua area.
The importance for the report has to do with the fact that until now, Codelco has invested US $ 40 million in early tasks that have to do with the initial exploration phases, resources that would have to increase in the short term to advance in the next phase.
Thanks to these works, mining resources were quantified at 1,500 million tons of copper and molybdenum, with a law of 0.51%, which prompted Codelco to move forward to specify the geological information and agree on the most efficient and economic exploitation methods.
Sources aware of the advances of the initiative comment that there is also a political issue behind the report, which has to do with the differences between the current President Lenin Moreno and his predecessor, Rafael Correa, who was a promoter of mining in Ecuador. Apart from this is the undeniably strong opposition from local communities.
Contacted by “El Mercurio”, from the Comptroller’s Office of Ecuador, they indicated that Codelco has a period of five days to report on its findings, plus another five to make them final. With everything, from Ecuador they indicated that the final report will be published in a month.
From Codelco’s side, meanwhile, they said that so far they have not been notified of the report of the Comptroller of Ecuador, so they are unaware of its content.
Original report: http://www.mch.cl/2019/01/29/contraloria-ecuatoriana-cuestiona-proyecto-codelco-ese-pais-arriesga-suspension/