Citizens rally to reopen Cobre Panama copper mine  

Thousands of former workers, members of supplier companies and residents around First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX: FM) giant Cobre Panama copper mine rallied for the government to reopen the major employer and economic driver, according to local media. 

The demonstrators on Sunday want the government of President José Raúl Mulino to start negotiations with First Quantum subsidiary Minera Panamá. The mine, at one time responsible for about 5% of the Central American country’s economy, was ordered closed in late 2023 after protests and court challenges against a 20-year mining licence. 

Katherine Márquez, a former worker at Cobre Panama, described to El Capital Financiero it was “shocking” to see how businesses, communities and people who were growing hand in hand with mining activity “have been left without dreams or opportunities” with the closure of the mine.  

The peaceful demonstration occupied a section of the Inter-American Highway in the direction of Nata de Los Caballeros. It attracted people from the districts of La Pintada, Omar Torrijos and Donoso. 

‘Decent job’

People participated to “demand their right to have a decent job,” Cecilia Martínez, a resident of the community of Coclesito in the Omar Torrijos Herrera district, told local media. People want “to contribute to the construction of a country that advances socially and economically in peace” and to reject the accusations of those who demonstrated against the mine as “sellouts of the homeland.”

Martínez told the news agency that after the closure of the Cobre Panama mine, local economies experienced a breakdown and left residents without opportunities to earn a livelihood. 

First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) is spending about $20 million a month to maintain the idled mine under a recently approved care and maintenance plan.  The company has 121,000 tonnes of concentrate on site, though some has deteriorated after nearly two years of inactivity, which could be sold to help cover costs. 

Cobre Panama, Central America’s largest open-pit copper mine, produced 330,863 tonnes of copper in 2023. It would have become a 100-million-tonnes-a-year operation in 2024, placing it near the top of the world’s copper throughput ranking. 

In April, a joint venture between First Quantum Minerals and the Panamanian government was presented as a practical solution to the dispute that has kept the Cobre Panama copper mine shut since November 2023.