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Controversy over Norwegian mining in the Philippines

Despite a 25-year moratorium on mining on the Philippine island of Mindoro: A Norwegian mining company has nevertheless received the signal for a billion-dollar nickel project.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The news comes as a shock to opponents of mining on the Philippine island of Mindoro:

Philippine authorities have given Norwegian mining company Crew Development the production license for the company's highly controversial nickel project in Mindoro, after Crew lost the permit almost three years ago due to local opposition to the mining project.

The news was presented on March 24 in the form of a press release from the company's headquarters in London.

The Mineral Production-Sharing Agreement (MPSA) has been granted by the Philippines Central Government, despite the fact that two years ago the provincial authorities in Mindoro adopted a 25-year moratorium on all mining activities.

The victory that people at Mindoro thought they had won over the Norwegian mining company almost three years ago is thus no longer as certain.

Open mines

The Alta-like dispute over the Nickoro Project (Mindoro Nickel Project) began in earnest in 1997. At that time, the Norwegian mining company Mindex – which later became Crew Development – acquired the rights to minerals in a concession area on Mindoro, the island southwest of the main island Luzon.

The project was presented to the locals as follows: Nickel and cobalt are to be extracted in open quarries in the mountains in central Mindoro. Mindoro is divided into two provinces; Oxidental and Oriental Mindoro, most of which will be located in the latter province.

From the mine, the ore – diluted with water – will be transported in a 43 kilometer long pipeline down to Pili on the east coast of the island, close to the town of Pinamalayan.

Here, the company will build a nickel and cobalt processing plant. It is planned to produce 40.000 tonnes of nickel and just over 3000 tonnes of cobalt annually.

The Pili plant will use a processing method called High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL), which uses sulfuric acid to extract nickel and cobalt from the ore. To this end, the company has secured easy and cheap access to sulfur on the island of Negros southeast of Mindoro.

A major port facility will be built in Pili, where not only sulfur will be shipped in and nickel and cobalt will be shipped. About a quarter of the nickel raw materials are sourced from a nickel mine on the island of Palawan, located southwest of Mindoro.

Dizzying revenue

It was no small matter of plans Mindex, which at the time was the company's name, had. Today, Crew's head of the Oslo office, Truls Birkeland, estimates that the investments will be one billion US dollars.

But then there is also the potential for large revenues: With today's price of nickel, revenues will be a staggering half a billion US dollars a year, according to Birkeland.

However, the project is far too large for Crew alone to carry it. From the very beginning, it has therefore been a goal to bring an internationally large company on the owner's side. Today, Crew states that an East Asian company – preferably a Chinese one – will most likely be a partner.

From the beginning, the company profiled the project as a major economic boost and a positive prosperity development for Mindoro and its people. In a press release from Mindex on 19 August 1998, the company writes that “there are no social, environmental or technical challenges that can stop the project. The locals welcome the project. ”

Resistance

The problem for Crew Development, which is 82 percent owned by Norwegian interests, was that the nickel project, on the contrary, from the first moment was met with massive opposition on Mindoro, something the undersigned experienced when I went to Mindoro in 1999 to investigate the case for NorWatch.

A broad alliance consisting of church organizations, environmental activists, farmers 'organizations, human rights groups, organizations working on social issues and indigenous peoples' federations was formed with the aim of stopping the entire project.

ALAMIN, as the alliance is still called, has over the years organized large demonstrations and sent formal protests to authorities at various levels. In 1999, in a few months, they collected more than 25.000 signatures in protest against the nickel project.

The protest letter from ALAMIN stated, among other things, the following:

"We categorically reject Mindex's statement that the locals in Oriental Mindoro unconditionally welcome the mining project."

Indigenous peoples' rights

Opposition to the project is based on a number of factors. First, the actual mining will take place in the mountains where the indigenous people of Mindoro, the Mangyans, live. Their umbrella organization KPLN (representing seven different Mangyan tribes) quickly adopted a resolution against the project.

In addition to the violation of indigenous peoples' rights, the local population fears that the project will lead to environmental damage. The island has already been exposed to extensive deforestation due to logging and population pressure, among other things.

Today, only 6 percent of Mindoro is covered by forest, and it is mainly located in the mountains where the Mangyans live. Plans for open quarries are therefore unwelcome.

Opponents not only fear deforestation and destruction within the mining concession. In the same area, several of the large rivers originate. In the lowlands of the Oriental Mindoro province are some of the richest rice field areas in the country. Due to deforestation, farmers and the rest of the local population have already experienced devastating floods in recent years during the rainy season.

With mining and deforestation on the mountainside, they fear even worse floods.

Opponents are also concerned about another side of water resources. According to the plans, Crew needs 1150 cubic meters of water per hour to flush the ore from the mine through the pipeline to the processing plant in Pili.

What effect this will have on the groundwater and ecology in the mountains is an open question that concerns the opponents.

Waste in the sea

As for the plant in Pili, one of the topics of contention is the discharge of the waste – or red sludge – from the processing plant into the sea. This will take place through a pipeline that will go several kilometers into the sea and which ends at a depth of several hundred meters.

The method is called Submarine Tailings Discharge (STD), and is highly controversial and controversial.

ALAMIN is very skeptical about the effect the emissions will have on the ecology in the sea. According to the authorities, the Mindoro Strait east of Mindoro is one of the country's most important fishing areas, where, among other things, one of the most commercially important tuna species has its regular migration route.

And it is not without reason that fishermen along the coast are concerned: The content of nickel and cobalt is one and 0,07 percent, respectively. With an annual production of 40.000 tonnes of nickel and 3000 tonnes of cobalt at the plant in Pili, this would indicate that more than four million tonnes of waste will be discharged straight into the sea.

Experts have warned that this could lead to a cloud of suspension. That is, a cloud of small particles that do not settle down, but instead lie over the seabed like an eternal sandstorm.

bribes

The locals' view of the Mindoro Nickel Project did not get any better when the Norwegian company was accused of bribing itself to support politicians and locals.

In early 1999, several politicians came forward and told NorWatch that the company's representative in Mindoro had given them wristwatches as Christmas presents. The same happened in relation to other centrally located people, including the indigenous people.

- In this country you have to give gifts for Christmas, it is part of the culture. We have to accept it, we can not come here and push them Scandinavian norms. Besides, these were cheap watches that only cost three hundred kroner. Corruption is not as dangerous as it may seem in this country, you can not buy support, Arne Isberg, the head of Mindex's subsidiary in the Philippines, told NorWatch at the time.

In addition, Crew's forerunner Mindex sponsored everything from singing and beauty pageants to the construction of a parsonage and study trips for politicians.

25 year moratorium

The situation seemed – despite local opposition – to go Crews way when they in early 2001 were granted the production permit. But the validity of the MPSA agreement was short-lived; in July 2001, it was withdrawn by the Philippine authorities.

The following year, the provincial authorities in Oriental Mindoro adopted a 25-year moratorium on all forms of mining, which further put an end to the Norwegian company's plans.

Also at home, the company underwent upheavals. The year 2000 began with a merger between Norwegian Mindex and Canadian Crew Development, where the Norwegians were left with a 40 percent share.

Eventually, the old management of Mindex, including Arne Isberg in the Philippines, was removed. Then the Norwegians took control of Crew Development, where now 82 percent of the shares are in Norwegian hands.

After Crew lost its production license, the company has been low on the nickel project at Mindoro. Until the press release from the company came last week.

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