Collahuasi permit annulled in court

Chile’s Second Environmental Tribunal has thrown one of the country’s biggest mining investments back into environmental review, annulling the 2021 permit for Collahuasi’s $3.2 billion expansion project and ordering regulators to revisit part of the case. The May 15 ruling affects the “Infrastructure Development and Production Capacity Improvement” project at Compañía Minera Doña Inés de Collahuasi, one of the world’s largest copper operations. The court said the environmental review had not adequately addressed objections tied to the human baseline and marine impacts. Anglo American, one of Collahuasi’s owners, said on May 18 that the desalination plant included in the project is now almost complete and that it did not expect an immediate impact on production. ### Which permit did the court strike down? The permit at issue is the environmental authorization, known in Chile as the RCA, granted in December 2021 for Collahuasi’s expansion project. Anglo American said the permit had covered the “Infrastructure Development and Production Capacity Improvement” project, including a water desalination plant for the mine. The company said the 2021 approval had later been confirmed by Chile’s Ministers Committee in August 2023. (mch.cl) The May 15 judgment annulled that favorable RCA after the tribunal upheld one of three claims brought against the project. Mining publication MCh said the accepted claim came from the indigenous associations Wilamasi de Pescadores Mamq’uta Caleta Chanavaya and Aymara de Caleta Chanavaya. ### Why did the judges send the project back? The tribunal said the challenged administrative resolution lacked adequate reasoning. (angloamerican.com) In its summary of the judgment, MCh reported that the court found public-participation observations had been addressed incompletely and without sufficient technical and legal weighing. It said those deficiencies produced illegalities tied to the human component of the assessment and to the environmental review of the marine environment. (mch.cl) The court ordered Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service, or SEA, to roll the procedure back and prepare a new consolidated report that properly addresses those observations. The new analysis must specifically incorporate use of the coastal area around Punta Patache and Puerto Collahuasi by the claimant associations, according to the ruling summary. ### Does the ruling stop all work immediately? (mch.cl) Anglo American said on May 18 that Collahuasi was seeking clarification from both the tribunal and the SEA to determine the specific effects of the ruling and any impact on operations. The company said it did not currently expect any immediate impact on production because of existing alternative water sources. On May 20, the tribunal clarified that not all work was frozen. (mch.cl) Radio Paulina reported that the court said Collahuasi could continue executing non-challenged parts of the project, at its own risk, in the Cordillera and Ductos sectors and in the non-reproached aspects of the Puerto Collahuasi sector. The same report said Collahuasi told the court that construction and testing at the desalination plant had been halted after notification of the judgment, with only minimum maintenance and safety work continuing there. (angloamerican.com) ### What matters most inside that clarification? The May 20 clarification narrowed the practical effect of the annulment by preserving parts of the environmental evaluation that the tribunal had validated or that were not disputed in the case. Radio Paulina said the court specified that those surviving elements include validated or uncontested administrative procedures, mitigation measures, voluntary commitments, indigenous-consultation agreements and sectoral permits, but only for certain parts of the project. (radiopaulina.cl) That means the legal problem is concentrated in the parts of the review the judges found defective, not in every permit condition attached to the broader expansion. Anglo American said it was still seeking full clarity on what the tribunal requires the SEA to re-examine. ### What happens next in the Chile process? The next formal step is with the SEA. The tribunal ordered the agency to reopen part of the environmental review, issue a new ICSARA report and revisit the observations tied to the human baseline and marine effects. (radiopaulina.cl) Collahuasi said, through Anglo American, that it is evaluating legal actions and will continue working with authorities and stakeholders to determine the appropriate next steps. (angloamerican.com) The tribunal’s May 20 clarification also leaves the company able to keep advancing non-challenged works while the re-review proceeds, but only under its own risk and only in the sectors the court identified. (mch.cl)