SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chile’s environmental regulator has filed 4 expenses towards the most important Los Bronces mine, managed by Anglo American (JO:), for noncompliance with environmental permits, the company stated on Monday.
The costs might carry a positive of practically 17 billion pesos ($17.17 million), in keeping with the Superintendency of the Surroundings, or SMA.
Los Bronces is certainly one of Chile’s largest copper mines with output of 255,000 metric tons final yr, in addition to a key venture for Anglo American, which has been a takeover goal of bigger rival BHP.
Anglo American didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
One cost was deemed “very serious,” the best of three offense ranges, for noncompliance relationship again to a 2014 sanction.
On the time, the SMA discovered that Anglo American Sur, the native unit that operates Los Bronces, did not resolve acid drainage on the Esteriles Donoso tailings deposit, designed to carry mine waste.
“The company has not implemented a definitive solution … it constitutes a repetition of acts previously sanctioned,” the SMA stated in an announcement.
The regulator additionally filed two expenses within the mid-level “serious” class. One was towards Anglo American for not designing a mitigation system for acid waters collected downstream of the Esteriles deposit, and one other for not taking measures to regulate seepage in Las Tortolas tailings dam.
The SMA additionally discovered that Anglo American had not reported to the company full knowledge associated to water and tailings, a violation it categorized as “minor.”
The miner has 15 days to current a mitigation program, and 22 days to contest the costs.
The SMA earlier this month additionally filed three expenses towards Anglo American for violations at its El Soldado copper mine within the Valparaiso area.
($1 = 989.9000 Chilean pesos)
