Who should be in charge of 120 thousand tons of copper concentrate?

The 120,000 tons of copper concentratestored in Panama copper mine, represent an unresolved dilemma. This concentrate, which began to accumulate at the end of November 2023, remains at the construction site after the failure Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) which declared the contract between the company and the Panamanian state unconstitutional.

On February 20, during the launch of his Program of participation of visitors and citizens, which opens the doors of the project to those who want to get to know it; spokesman for Cobra Panamá, Maru Galvezhe explained that one of the activities covered in Preservation and Safe Management Plan (PGS) (carried out before the cessation of operations) is the management and commercialization of that copper concentrate that was stored before the sudden cessation, and one of the alternatives, when it is commercialized, is the possibility of covering the costs of the Preservation and Safe Management Plan, which is currently taken over by the company, whose assessment is between 15 and 20 million dollars per month.

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Regarding the above, environmental law expert, Harley Mitchell He commented in a television interview that “Panama should not pay for a maintenance program if it already has underground resources. The best technology available (whether we like it or not) is a company, it must be in charge of marketing materials (concentrates) exclusively for site cleaning, that would be the best solution so far.”

The removal of this material is necessary to avoid possible health, safety and environmental problems associated with the heating of the material caused by chemical reactions, as well as the creation of potentially harmful gases,” the company detailed at the time.

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_{A flotation process carried out to separate copper from waste rock.}

He Ministry of Trade and Industry (Mici)the entity in charge of the mining activity in the country, did not make a concrete statement on what should be done, because the dilemma lies in who owns the rights to the said concentrate, although Cobre Panamá clearly said that “it is important to clarify that Article 2 of the Mineral Code establishes that this copper concentrate belongs to the company as a concessionaire at the time the mineral was extracted and processed, before the judgment of unconstitutionality against Law 406 of 2023, November 28, 2023.”

The company’s statement was supported by the Attorney General Rigoberto González on January 29 of this year, who assured that the said concentrate is the property of the company, because it was processed before the Supreme Court of Justice announced on November 28, 2023 the decision on the new contract.

At that time, an expert in environmental management and planning, Roderick Gutierrezhe expressed that “the need for decisive action is more urgent than ever”.

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