Ecuador’s president asks court to resume environmental consultations

Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso has asked the country’s constitutional court to revoke a decision issued last week to suspend a decree enabling environmental consultations prior to issuing mining licences.

Popular referendums are a necessary step for any mining company hoping to obtain an environmental licence in Ecuador. Suspending them adds additional waiting time for companies to obtain all the necessary permits to begin extraction.

“We submitted the request to the constitutional court to revoke the measure yesterday,” the legal secretary of the presidency, Juan Pablo Ortiz, said on his official Twitter account on Tuesday. “We cannot stop the country’s economic activity!” he added.

The decree issued by the executive in May sought to speed up permitting before the end of his term this month. 

Two mining projects were able to benefit from Lasso’s decree before the halt. One of them was Adventus Mining (TSXV: ADZN) and Salazar Resources’ (TSXV: SRL) Curipamba-El Domo copper and gold project, which reached a preliminary investment protection agreement for the asset in June.

The project, which still needs to go through two other phases, has already secured the government’s environmental and social impact assessment approval.

Once built, Curipamba-El Domo will be the third operating mine considered key by Ecuador’s government. To date, the country’s only two producing assets are Mirador copper mine, run by China-backed Ecuacorriente and Lundin Gold’s (TSX: LUG) Fruta del Norte gold mine.

Atico Mining’s (TSXV: ATY) La Plata polymetallic asset, previously identified by Lasso as a “strategic project” and “a component of the country’s reactivation plan” had moved forward in recent weeks thanks to the decree. Consultation on the project, however, has been suspended for several days for security reasons.

$1 billion-investment blocked

Mining was Ecuador’s fourth-largest source of income last year, behind sales of oil, bananas and shrimp, bringing in US$2.8 billion to the state’s coffers.

According to the country’s Chamber of Mining, opposition to extractive activities is blocking nearly $1 billion in potential investment and 100 projects for the next two years.

An exception is SolGold’s (LSE: SOLG) Cascabel copper-gold project, which last month was granted a 25-year licence renewal.

The halted local referendum in Quito could result in a mining ban for the Choco Andino forest, which would affect six gold concessions.

The South American country could also lose about 12% of its 480,000-barrel-per-day crude oil output if voters approve shuttering a key area in the megadiverse Yasuni nature reserve in the Amazon.