PANAMA CITY: The government of Panama announced on Friday that maintenance work may be starting on a significant mine that had been forced to close due to protests, but it insisted that the project was not equivalent to the pit reopening. The largest copper mine in Central America, Cobre Panama Mine, was purchased by Canadians in 2023 after days of harrowing protests over its negative impact on the environment. According to Trade and Industry Minister Julio Molto, a company of Canada’s First Quantum Minerals will maintain the facility in order to avoid “environmental harm” from supplies kept there. Molto claimed that” this decision (… ) does not imply the mine’s reactivation.” Second Quantum Minerals announced that it would finance the project by exporting the site’s 121, 000 kilograms of brass focus since it has been shut down. Without laying out how he intends to overcome legal obstacles, Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino stated last month that his state was working to reopen the me. A deal that allowed First Quantum Minerals to continue operating the site was declared unconstitutional by the nation’s Supreme Court in November 2023. Environmentalist Raisa Banfield criticized Friday’s statement as the Canadian company” can’t manage the me.” She demanded an external assessment to “establish the definitive closing plan.” Cobre Panama, which began operations in 2019, had produced about 300, 000 kilos of brass focus annually, which represented about 5 % of its national economic production and 75 percent of its exports. It employed about 37, 000 people both directly and indirectly.
