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Source: AFP
Panama's authorities said Friday it would commencement attraction enactment astatine a large excavation forced to unopen by protests, but insisted the task was not tantamount to the pit reopening.
Central America's biggest copper mine, the Canadian-owned Cobre Panama pit, closed successful 2023 pursuing weeks of crippling protests implicit its biology impact.
Maintenance volition beryllium carried retired by a subsidiary of Canada's First Quantum Minerals "to forestall biology damage" from materials stored astatine the mine, Trade and Industry Minister Julio Molto told a quality conference.
"This determination (...) does not connote the reactivation of the mine," Molto said.
First Quantum Minerals said it would concern the enactment by exporting 121,000 tonnes of copper ore stored astatine the tract since it closed down.
Panama's President Jose Raul Mulino said past period that his authorities was moving toward reopening the mine, without clarifying however helium plans to tackle ineligible hurdles.
The country's Supreme Court ruled successful November 2023 that a declaration allowing First Quantum Minerals to proceed operating the tract was unconstitutional.
Environmentalist Raisa Banfield criticized Friday's announcement arsenic the Canadian elephantine "can't negociate the mine."
She called for an outer audit to "establish the definitive closure plan."
Cobre Panama, which began operations successful 2019, had produced astir 300,000 tonnes of copper ore a year, representing 75 percent of the country's exports and astir 5 percent of its nationalist economical output.
It employed astir 37,000 workers straight and indirectly.
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Source: AFP
