Panama will allow controversial mine to export already mined copper to fund maintenance

Panama volition let a arguable excavation that was closed aft months of protests to export much than 120,000 tons of already mined copper ore to wage the costs of maintaining the inactive excavation site

PANAMA CITY -- Panama volition let a arguable excavation that was closed aft months of protests to export much than 120,000 tons of already mined copper ore to wage the costs of maintaining the inactive excavation site, authorities officials announced Friday.

Opposition to the monolithic copper excavation led to immoderate of Panama’s astir widespread protests successful caller years earlier the country's Supreme Court rejected a woody that allowed a Canadian institution to run it.

Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals said Friday that exporting the worldly that's sitting astatine the tract volition money attraction and biology extortion measures.

Panama's President José Raúl Mulino called for those steps successful March, erstwhile concern groups were lobbying him to reopen the mine. Income from the excavation accounted for astir 5% of Panama gross home merchandise the past twelvemonth it operated.

“The intent is to avoid, supra each else, biology damage,” Trade and Industry Minister Julio Moltó said Friday. He emphasized that the excavation was not reopening, but said that the program would guarantee the tract remained safe.

The open-pit excavation was temporarily closed successful 2022 erstwhile talks betwixt the authorities and First Quantum broke down implicit payments the authorities wanted. In March 2023, Panama’s Congress reached an statement with First Quantum, allowing subsidiary Panama Copper to proceed operating the excavation successful a biodiverse jungle connected the Atlantic seashore westbound of the superior for astatine slightest 20 much years.

The woody faced absorption from those who believed Panama wasn’t getting arsenic overmuch arsenic it should and from environmentalists and Indigenous groups who raised concerns astir the mine’s impact.

Protests included a blockade of the mine’s powerfulness plant. Protesters besides blocked parts of the Pan American highway, including a agelong adjacent the borderline with Costa Rica.

On Nov. 28, 2023, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the 20-year concession was unconstitutional and then-President Laurentino Cortizo announced the commencement of a process to adjacent the mine.

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