MANILA -Mining company Sagittarius Mines Inc. (SMI) aims to get its Tampakan mining project in Mindanao, touted as the largest underdeveloped copper-gold resource in Southeast Asia, up and running by 2026.
“We would like to have it…maybe by 2026 for us to really say that, under technical definition, it is really operating,” SMI president and CEO Roy Deveraturda said in a media roundtable.
Deveraturda said they have a timeline for constructing the Tampakan project in the next two to three years.
So far, SMI has completed the predevelopment phase, which includes the feasibility and environmental impact studies required by the government.
Now that SMI has reached the development phase, he said the company could start construction of the facilities, early works, engineering, drawing and design confirmation.
When asked why it would take up to three years to make Tampakan fully operational, Deveraturda said, “They thought [that] once you start, you just dig. It’s not like that. It’s really a very complicated thing and you have to follow all [regulations] … and [it] requires big work and a lot of technical expertise and financial muscle.”
Deveraturda said SMI was prepared to have the Tampakan copper-gold project operational even a decade ago, as it had already obtained the necessary permits and licenses. The ban on open-pit mining since 2010, however, derailed the project. The ban was only lifted in 2022.
“We have to be overly cautious on doing this,” Deveraturda said.
“Bottom line is, we are now ready into the next stage—providing now for the access so that we can start operating maybe in two to three years, build the facilities for our operations in the near term,” he added. INQ
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