Colombia’s national environmental agency, ANLA, has dismissed AngloGold Ashanti’s appeal against the “archiving” of its permit application for Quebradona, the gold major confirmed on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for AngloGold confirmed the decision and told Mining Weekly that the mining company was reviewing the latest ruling and that it would provide an update on its position in due course.
ANLA in October 2021 notified AngloGold of its decision to “archive” the environmental application for the copper/gold project, stating that it did not have enough information to take a substantive decision.
The company had planned to resubmit its application, which would have delayed the project by about two years. However, ANLA’s latest ruling means that a new environmental impact assessment must be done if the miner is to proceed with permitting the project, a local newspaper reported.
Quebradona is one of the world’s preeminent copper projects, expected to treat about 6.2-million tonnes a year of ore, producing three-billion pounds of copper and 1.5-million ounces of gold and 21-million ounces of silver over about 23 years.
AngloGold also owns the Gramalote project, in Colombia, in a joint venture with B2Gold.