Eco Oro pulls out of Colombia gold concession amid legal battle -letter

Eco Oro Minerals

28/06/2019 18:27

BOGOTA, June 28 (Reuters) - Eco Oro Minerals Corp  EOM.CD 
has pulled out of its Angostura gold concession in Colombia amid
a legal battle with the Andean country over environmental
restrictions the Canadian miner said  made the project
impossible, according to a company letter.
    The March 29 letter to the mining minister was disclosed by
environmental group Comite Santurban in a tweet on Thursday.
    A spokesman for Eco Oro declined to comment. The mining
ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    Eco Oro sued the government in 2016 after the project in
Santander province was cut in half by a constitutional court
ruling and new regulations that expanded wetland protections. It
is seeking $764 million in damages in ongoing arbitration,
saying it had invested some $250 million.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N1R51RX
    Multinational miners looking to build large-scale
underground projects in Colombia have struggled with a
smorgasbord of legal, financial, environmental and community
problems in recent years. Eco Oro is the second to fully pull
out of a major project.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL2N23P1GI
    The expansion of the boundaries of the Santurban
high-altitude wetland and regulations approved by mining
authorities have deprived Eco Oro of its right to mine the
concession, the company said in the letter.
    "The impossibility of accessing the mineral resources made
the Angostura project economically inviable for the company,"
the letter said. "Furthermore, there is still not certainty in
relation to whether Eco Oro could develop the remaining areas of
the concession outside of the preservation area of the wetland."
    The company will coordinate with the authorities to close
down its operations at the site, it added.

 (Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Richard Chang)
 ((julia.cobb@thomsonreuters.com; +571-518-5381;))