Mining in Ecuador comes to a halt as Gov’t orders to stay home

Miners in Ecuador are temporarily halting all activities in the country after the government urged everyone to stay home.

After infecting a majority of Latin American nations, the novel coronavirus has now reached Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with four testing positive.

Australia’s SolGold (LON, TSX:SOLG), which is developing the Cascabel copper-gold project, believed to be one of the largest copper-gold porphyry systems ever discovered, said on Wednesday it had reduced operations across the country.

Ecuador’s move comes as the novel coronavirus reached the country’s Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Chief executive officer, Nick Mather, said the company was actively monitoring employees and will continue to do so for the next two weeks. It also noted that only essential personnel were currently present at the different sites.

Cornerstone Capital Resources (TSX-V: CGP), which holds 22.2% direct and indirect interest in Cascabel, also announced a suspension of activities, but noted certain aspects, including the Alpala prefeasibility study, continued to move forward based on the “substantial” information already gathered from site.

The Ottawa-based company also said exploration at its Miocene project in Chile has also been suspended by farm-in funding partner and operator Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM) to protect employees and contractors.

Ecuador has attracted a flurry of interest from big miners eager to increase their exposure to copper. The highly conductive metal is in demand for use in renewable energy and electric vehicles, but big, new deposits are rare.

The Andean nation is moving forward with plans to move from an explorer hotspot to mining exporter as its only large-scale copper mine shipped its first large cargo in November.

The South American country plans to attract $3.7 billion in mining investments between 2019 and 2020, up significantly from the $270 million it received in 2018.

from MINING.COM https://ift.tt/2xsdnmQ