Canada-based precious metals explorer Luminex has reached a mediated agreement with informal miners in the Condor North portion of its Condor gold and copper project, in Ecuador.
The agreement enables Luminex to secure areas in strategic proximity to Condor North and, at the same time, satisfies the decades-long desire of these informal artisanal miners to gain legal mineral concession rights over informal mining properties in the company's Chinapintza area.
The Ecuadorian counterparty is Minera La Pangui, which incorporates members of Asolapanguina and Asopromidiche, neighbouring associations of informal miners.
The local entity has 19 shareholders, and the agreement is expected to benefit a large number of additional individuals within the area of influence of the Condor project.
The majority of the shareholders of the local entity were granted artisanal mining permits to work within the Chinapintza mineral concession area following the government of Ecuador's 2010 Artisanal Mining Census, which registered a number of artisanal miners with long-term operations in the area of the Condor project. These artisanal mining permits are approaching expiration, a condition which generated concern among the shareholders of the local entity regarding their future prospects.
Over the past decade, Luminex has improved its understanding of the areas that might be necessary for mine development, as well as identified areas of mineral value that, owing to economic and technical reasons, will not be incorporated into the Condor North mine plan.
The agreement is the result of a series of negotiations that started in February last year, under the leadership of a professional mediator.
Under the terms of the agreement, the company agrees to execute a material division of its Chinapintza concession to create four new mining titles, one of which will be transferred to the local entity.
The transfer of this title (La Pangui, 53 ha) will ensure that the local entity has legally secure and long-term mineral concessions, along with the obligation to obtain all the regulatory and environmental permits and licences necessary for the mining operations.
The local entity agrees that, once the transfer of the mining title has been completed, it will grant the company a voluntary mining easement for the duration of said mining title and its renewals and extensions.
In addition to relinquishing their permits and committing to not request any new rights or undertake operations in any areas where the company has mining rights, the shareholders of the local entity collectively and individually agree to collaborate with the company to help restrict the entrance of illegal miners to the concessions of the Condor project.
The local entity and their shareholders also commit to conduct environmental audits that may be requested by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of its operations, as well as to remediate any environmental impacts their operations may have caused and assume responsibility for any environmental liability that may arise as a result of their past activities.
They also grant the company a right of first refusal over any future sale of the mining title, and commit that if this right is not exercised, any future purchaser of the mining title will commit to abiding by the terms of the agreement.