The Muga Mine, pending a permit that Sangüesa has not yet granted
The City Council awaits a report from the Government given the desperation of the company, which will invest 600 million
Juan Angel MonrealPAMPLONA | 02·19·23 | 08:41
The other major investment project –and the one with the greatest generation of employment– that has been proposed in Navarra has not yet started after almost a decade of processing.
The Muga Mine, which intends to extract potash in Sangüesa, Javier and Undués de Lerda (Zaaragoza),
is waiting for the Sangüesa city council to grant the activity license to be able to start the works definitively.
"It cannot be that with 360 million of bank financing already tied up and 80 million euros that we have already invested,
we are waiting for a piece of paper that has to reach the Sangüesa City Council," thunders Ignacio Salazar, CEO of Geoalcali, the Highfield Resources company. that the mine will explode.
The initiative involves an investment of close to 600 million euros, says the company, as well as the generation of some 800 jobs.
An activity that, due to its magnitude, can transform the region and that will make it possible to have access to a strategic mineral such as potash, the price of which has skyrocketed after the war in Ukraine and which is vital for fertilizing the soil.
"In Canada they have just helped a similar project with more than 70 million euros," they say from Geoalcali.
The "little piece of paper" to which Salazar refers is a compatibility report that must be issued by the Government of Navarra,
specifically its Department of Territorial Planning. And that it has been claimed by the Sangüesa City Council after warning that the mine project affects a plot of public utility. "In fact, we already raised it with the Government of Navarra last summer," explains the mayoress of Sangüesa, Lucía Echegoyen, referring to a Public Utility Mountain that would be partially affected by the works, which are currently stopped in Undués. de Lerda, where they had started after receiving the municipal permit.The Navarrese administration is acting, however, with much greater parsimony than the Aragonese.It was not until November 2022 when the Government of Navarra granted the authorization for the use of undeveloped land necessary for Sangüesa to give the work permit. But this authorization did not refer to that plot of public utility, something that the city council understands is essential to "have a solid and rigorous basis" on which to act. "We still have no response from the Government of Navarra," explains the mayoress who hopes that the Territorial Planning will issue the compatibility report that will allow it to continue.PARTIAL AUTHORIZATIONThe company, in any case, demands that the City Council grant a partial authorization, pending the arrival of the compatibility report from the Government of Navarra. "Legally they can do it," they explain from the company. The works, they say, hardly affect this Mount of Public Utility, "where there is even a dump." "We could be working on the remaining 95%," they remember from Geoalcali. The City Council disagrees on this point. And, although he admits that it is possible to grant this license, he remembers that the company has not presented a project justifying that neither the works "nor their accesses" affect this plot.
https://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/economia/2023/02/19/mina-muga-pendiente-permiso-sanguesa-6462946.htmlSo as Bourie says, maybe on Wednesday......but what Wednesday?
Regards
Ignacio
(20min delay)