Belo Sun’s Volta Grande suffers setback

Canadian miner Belo Sun Mining has received another setback to its Volta Grande gold project in the Pará state of Brazil: the interim suspension of its construction and environmental licenses. A judge with the Agrarian Court of Altamira has suspended the licenses until a socio-environmental study of the riverside peoples, at a minimum distance of 10 kilometers from the project,…

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Atico nabs EIA approval for La Plata VMS project

Latin America-focused Atico Mining has received approval of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the construction and operations of its high-grade La Plata VMS project in Ecuador. The La Plata project plan consists of a 900-t/d underground mining operation with state-of-the-art infrastructure, including a filtered tailings facility – a first of its kind in Ecuador. This technology, already used at Atico’s…

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Horizonte breaks ground at Araguaia

Nickel developer Horizonte Minerals has kicked off construction at its flagship Araguaia project in Para state, northern Brazil. The company is now entering a 24-month construction period with its Stage 1 targeting production of 14,500 tonnes per year. It has already awarded most of its crucial long-lead equipment contracts, including the project’s furnace in late February, earthworks earlier this month…

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BHP opens US$2.46 billion copper concentrator at Spence

Global miner BHP inaugurated a new copper concentrator plant on May 13 at its Spence operation in northern Chile, which will extend the life of the mine for another 50 years. The project required an investment of US$2.46 billion and has a throughput of 95,000 t/d to produce copper concentrate and molybdenum concentrate. The miner said the project supports its…

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Horizonte selects Copa for Araguaia earthworks

Brazil-focused Horizonte Minerals has awarded the earthworks contract for the construction of its 100%-owned Araguaia ferronickel project to Copa Construção S.A. Araguaia is a Tier 1 mining project with a high-grade scalable resource, located south of the Carajás Mining District in the state of Pará, northern Brazil. Horizonte said it will use an open pit mining method, transporting its nickel-ore…

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State mining rights falls short in Chilean vote

A proposal to give Chile exclusive mining rights over lithium, hydrocarbons and rare earth metals as well as majority ownership of copper mines in the country has failed to pass the constitutional assembly, reported Reuters.  The proposal, which faced strong opposition from the country’s mining industry, needed a supermajority of 103 votes to be included into the draft of a…

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Deny Anglo American extension permit: Chilean regulator

Photo: Anglo American A Chilean environmental regulator has recommended that Anglo American’s permit application to extend its Los Bronces copper project not be granted.  The global miner said the Environmental Assessment Service of Chile (SEA) confirmed that the $3.3 billion project “satisfies all relevant environmental regulation but bases its adverse recommendation on an alleged lack of information during the evaluation…

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