BASE METALS

New ENAMI boss with Llurimagua headache to sort out

Lawyer Danilo Icaza has been appointed as general manager of Ecuador’s state mining company Enami, tasked with getting the Llurimagua copper-molybdenum project in Imbabura back on track.

Llurimagua in Ecuador

Llurimagua in Ecuador

Llurimagua is a joint venture between Enami (51%) and Chile's state copper company Codelco (49%), however, despite the partners structuring an agreement in late 2019, Enami has yet to legally form the JV company as the Enami board has yet to sign the agreements.

Advancement of the project has also been impacted by allegations of various breaches of contract conditions which are under investigation by the state comptroller and could threaten the validity of the mining concession and its environmental licence. The comptroller identified at least 12 irregularities in the concession that are cause for termination and recommended the project's environmental licence be reversed as well as the permits awarded by the water authority.

Some US$250 million is due to be spent on the project over the next four years to bring it to a construction decision, which could see Llurimagua potentially produce 210,000 tonnes per year of copper for 27 years.

Codelco has invested some $60 million since 2012 in the project, drilling 99,000m in 98 holes in the process and outlining a resource of 3.8 billion tonnes grading 0.44% containing 16.9Mt of copper.

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