Thumbs down on Petaquilla Gold clean up petition

PANAMA’S Supreme Court  is mulling over  a petition to cancel  Petaquilla Gold’s mining concession, meanwhile  it has rejected the company’s own  petition to invalidate a tender issued by the National Aid Program (PAN) to clean tailings containment ponds at its mine in Donoso, Colón.

Petaquilla Gold is a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Petaquilla Minerals that was awarded the concession to operate the mine in in 1997. It is also the center of an investigation into the alleged manipulation of its shares on the stockmarket  by former president Ricardo Martinelli and friends through an account “High Spirit’’ at the  Financial Pacific brokerage

The mine has been inactive for two years, and there are concerns that tailings could contaminate area water supplies if the ponds are not stabilized.

Spokesmen for Petaquilla Gold indicated that the company has not yet been notified of the decision reports La Prensa.

The company says that in August it applied for permits to drain the ponds, but it never received authorization. That would stabilize the containment ponds, since the danger is that they will overflow.

Instead of allowing the company to do the work, the Ministry of the Environment requested funds from the PAN to hire an independent contractor.

It has awarded the bid to the company Bluefin Seroca for a fee of $1.7 million.

The Ministry of the Environment estimates that it is necessary to remove 635,000 cubic meters of water from the ponds.

No timetable has been announced for a decision. on the  petition to cancel the company’s concession.