2018?

SMI already spent $375-M for Tampakan project: exec

By: Mindanao Times
Posted: November 29, 2012 2:37 am

Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI), the operator of the proposed copper-gold project in Tampakan, South Cotabato, has already spent about $375 million since it took over the project in 2005.

Anacleto Suelto Jr., technical superintendent under public affairs department of the company, said yesterday in the weekly Club 888 forum at Marco Polo Davao Hotel that although operations have yet to start, the company already invested in personnel, community projects and taxes.

The expenses, he said, are not yet part on the $5.9 billion budget to develop the copper-gold project.

He said part of the expenses are the goods and services and the fund use in studies on the potential environmental impact of the project, including its effect on water resources.

The Anglo-Swiss company Xstrata PLC is the majority stockholder of the company with Indophil, another foreign company, and local firm Alcantara as among the minority stockholders.

The firm has sought the intervention of the Office of the President after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources deferred the approval of its application for environmental compliance certificate on the basis that the South Cotabato government has imposed ban on open pit mining, the method that it will use.

The project will be built on a 9,600 hectare lot in Tampakan, South Cotabato.

Should the government and other stakeholders approve the project, infrastructure work will start next year.

“But we have to first secure the necessary requirements before we would start to operate,” Suelto said.

He said they have yet to secure the requirements like getting an environmental compliance certificate, approvals from the indigenous people (IP) communities and endorsements from the affected local government units.

The firm needs to get endorsements from the local governments of Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, South Cotabato and Davao del Sur.

The company, he added, has also yet to resettle about 1,000 households that will be affected once it would be established. With the need to secure first the necessary requirements, the company further decided to move its target date for commercial operations by 2018 from 2016.

Meanwhile, the company hired a private hydrologist to review its water resource study. “(The review) is expected to be finished by the end of the year,” said Roberto Soriano, a private hydrologist who was tasked to validate the report.

Based on his initial assessment, he said the project could affect the quantity and quality of water if there would be no mitigating measures in place.

Suelto, however, said SMI will ensure that it will establish mitigating measures like putting up a water treatment plant and fresh water dam. Kristianne M. Fusilero