Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Mining |
Founded | 1992 |
Headquarters | Vancouver, Canada 49°17′07″N123°06′59″W / 49.285220°N 123.116452°W Quito, Ecuador 0°10′43″S78°28′46″W / 0.178517°S 78.479419°W |
Key people | Jin Shouhua, Chairman (CEO) Li Dongquing (Senior VP) |
Products | Copper |
Number of employees | 98 (2008) |
Website | www |
Corriente Resources was a multinational corporation based in Canada that completed feasibility studies and environmental impact assessments (EIA) for open-pit copper mines in the Ecuadorian rainforest, including the Mirador mine. The Mirador mine is the first industrial scale copper mine to be developed in Ecuador. [1] Corriente Resources also completed explorations of the San Carlos Panantza mine, although development of that project was halted in 2020 by Indigenous opposition. [2]
The EIA for Mirador mine was approved in 2006, and a feasibility study for 30,000 tonnes per day production of copper-gold concentrate was completed in 2008. In 2010, the company was taken over by state-owned Chinese companies Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group Holdings Co. Ltd. and China Railway Construction Corp. Ltd. through their jointly owned subsidiary CRCC-Tongguan Investment Co. Ltd. [1] [3] [4]
Chinese companies began construction of Mirador mine in 2012, investing approximately $1.4 billion into the project and exporting the first shipment of copper from the mine to China in 2019. Agreements between China and Ecuador to develop the project met with popular resistance and led to protests in 2012 led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador. [5]
Corriente Resources was incorporated in 1992. About 2000, it entered into an agreement with BHP Billiton, buying mining concessions in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador. [6]
Through a community relations campaign, Corriente Resources was able to win over many of the inhabitants of the area that will be affected by the mine, spending money. However, in 2006 a local resistance movement was formed, which then took some mining camps. Another group of locals, supported by the corporation, resisted the take, and there was a fistfight. [7]
Due to its economic power, Corriente Resources not only has influenced Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, but also local authorities in Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago provinces, where the corporation operates. In early 2009, during a demonstration against the corporation in the town of San Miguel de Conchay in Morona Santiago, the village chief, Hernán Samaniego, issued a death threat against Vicente Zhunio, one of the copper mine's opponents. [8] [9]
Mirador is Corriente Resources' main project in Ecuador. It is located on coordinates 3°34′12″S78°26′05″W / 3.570046°S 78.434687°W , near the town of Gualaquiza on the western slope of the Cordillera del Cóndor mountain range. [10]
Corriente Resources plans to extract 30 thousand tonnes of copper ore per day for about 17 years, producing a sum total of 145 million tonnes of waste, which will be dumped near the open pit, in the middle of the rainforest. Corriente Resources believes it will use 10 thousand cubic meters of water per day, an amount equivalent to the water used by 20 thousand people in Ecuador's cities daily. Corriente Resources plans to build a dam near the Quimi River to hold the water produced by the mine. [10] [11]
Corriente Resources plans to invest $533 million upfront. [10]
To export the copper, Corriente Resources will build port facilities in Puerto Bolívar on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, 250 miles from the mine. [10]
In July 2009, Corriente Resources announced it had gotten the go ahead from the Environment Ministry and the Water Department of Ecuador to begin digging the open-pit mine. [12]
The following own 5 percent or more of Corriente Resources' stock: [13]
Name | Occupation | Business Address | Share of Stock |
---|---|---|---|
CRCC-TONGGUAN INVESTMENT (CANADA) CO., LTD. | Offeror owns 78,922,393 Common Shares of Corriente representing 100% of the Common Shares of Corriente | 800 West Pender Street Suite 520 Vancouver, BC V6C 2V6 | 100 http://www.corriente.com/media/PDFs/news/2010/20100804-CRIPressRelease.pdf |
The Shuar are an Indigenous people of Ecuador and Peru. They are members of the Jivaroan peoples, who are Amazonian tribes living at the headwaters of the Marañón River.
El Oro is the southernmost of Ecuador's coastal provinces. It was named for its historically important gold production. Today it is one of the world's major exporters of bananas. The capital is Machala.
Zamora Chinchipe, Province of Zamora Chinchipe is a province of the Republic of Ecuador, located at the southeastern end of the Amazon Basin, which shares borders with the Ecuadorian provinces of Azuay and Morona Santiago to the north, Loja and Azuay to the west, and with Peru to the east and south. The province comprises an area of approximately 10,456 km² and is covered with a uniquely mountainous topography which markedly distinguishes it from the surrounding Amazonian provinces. Zamora-Chinchipe is characterized and largely identified by its mining industry; indigenous ethnic groups with a rich archaeological legacy; its biodiversity; and its niche and tourist attractions, which include a number of waterfalls well-noted for their beauty. The province takes its name from the bureaucratic fusion of the Zamora and Chinchipe cantons. The provincial capital is the city of Zamora.
Codelco is a Chilean state-owned copper mining company. It was formed in 1976 from foreign-owned copper companies that were nationalised in 1971.
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador or, more commonly, CONAIE, is Ecuador's largest indigenous rights organization. The Ecuadorian Indian movement under the leadership of CONAIE is often cited as the best-organized and most influential Indigenous movement in Latin America
The Cordillera del Cóndor is a mountain range in the eastern Andes that is shared by and part of the international border between Ecuador and Peru.
Taseko Mines Limited is a mid-tier copper producer located in British Columbia, Canada. It operates Gibraltar Mine, the second largest open-pit copper mine in Canada, and is in the planning stages for several other mines including the Prosperity Mine, Harmony, and Aley. All production is sold at non-hedged market based prices. The market capitalization currently is roughly 740 million dollars.
Southern Copper Corporation is a mining company that was founded in 1952. The current incarnation of Southern Copper can be traced to the 2005 acquisition of Southern Peru Copper Corporation by the Mexican copper producer Minera México.
Mining in Ecuador was slow to develop in comparison to other Latin American countries, in spite of large mineral reserves. As late as 2012, according to the United Nations, Ecuador received less foreign direct investment per person than any other country in Latin America. During the 1980s, mining contributed only 0.7 percent to the Ecuadorian economy and employed around 7,000 people. Minerals were located in regions with little to no access, hindering exploration. Ecuador has reserves of gold, silver, copper, zinc, uranium, lead, sulfur, kaolin and limestone. The latter practically dominated the early industry as it was used in local cement plants.
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The 2012 Ecuadorian protests were a series of demonstrations by indigenous peoples who oppose the copper mining concessions in the province of Zamora-Chinchipe. On 22 March, the protesters reached the capital Quito to be met with counter protesters and warnings from the government and President Rafael Correa.
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The Mirador mine is a large copper mine located in the Amazonian province of Zamora-Chinchipe in southern Ecuador. It is one of the largest copper reserves in Ecuador, and the first industrial-scale copper project to be developed in the country. The project has generated an environmental conflict that is emblematic in the national political debate on mining.
The San Carlos Panantza mine is a large copper mine located in the south of Ecuador in Zamora-Chinchipe Province. San Carlos-Panantza is one of the largest copper reserves in Ecuador and in the world having estimated reserves of 600 million tonnes of ore grading 0.59% copper. The mine is in the Corriente copper belt along with the Mirador mine. It is being developed by ExplorCobres S.A., a subsidiary of the state-owned Chinese company CRCC-Tongguan Investment Co. Ltd that is also developing Mirador.
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Shiram Diana Atamaint Wamputsar is an Ecuadorian shuar politician. She has been a member of the National Assembly. In 2018 she became the president of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (Ecuador).