Curipamba project owners getting ready to start construction

Canadian companies Adventus Mining and Salazar Resources are ready to begin construction of the US$300 million Curipamba project, which is expected to become Ecuador's third industrial-scale mine, although some legal hurdles must still be cleared.

“All our licenses are valid. We continue to prepare for the start of early work and later the construction of the mine,” Skott Mealer, vice president of Adventus Mining, told BNamericas.

"Our expectation is that we will begin the first works in the third quarter or at the latest in the fourth quarter this year," Mealer, who is also CEO of Salazar's local unit, Curimining, said.

Curipamba's main minerals are copper and gold, but it also hosts zinc and silver. It is considered a medium-sized project in Ecuador and designed as an open-pit operation that could move underground later on.

In June, a court in Las Naves canton, where the project is based, accepted a protection action against the environment ministry and the attorney general's office.

The plaintiffs want the court to annul the ministry's approval of the environmental impact study and the environmental license, which are essential to begin construction.

A hearing is scheduled for next week, but even if a ruling is handed down, the process could take months because either party may appeal.

Curipamba's El Domo deposit contains high-grade ore. Located in Bolívar province in Ecuador's western mountain range, it is a volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposit.

“It is very likely that there are similar deposits in the region,” Mealer said.

Over the last 17 years, around 70,000m have been drilled, and some US$100mn have been invested to date.

Expected mine life is 10 years for the open-pit operation and another five years if it moves underground, according to a preliminary study.

A 2021 feasibility study said the open pit operation's proven and probable reserves amount to 6.48Mt, grading 1.93% copper and 2.52g/t gold, as well as silver, zinc and lead.

During the recent Expominas 2024 event, Mealer said that the project required 27 authorizations, including a certificate of non-impact on water sources, which is a technical study that demonstrates the measures to be adopted in that regard.

The environmental license establishes over 50 surface water quality monitoring points for construction and operation, more than 100 flow measurements, 20 groundwater quality and quantity control monitoring points, over 50 water discharge quality samples, and others.

Curipamba will generate more than 800 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs during the construction stage and 500 direct and 2,000-2,500 indirect ones after it starts operations.