Citinickel asks DENR to stop Palawan mining

http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=business03_aug02_2006

02 Aug 2006
By Elaine Ruzul S. Ramos

Citinickel Mines and Development Corp. has asked the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to stop a company from further exploiting its mine sites in Southern Palawan due to alleged serious violations of the country’s mining laws.

In complaints submitted to Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes and the department’s Panel of Arbitrators in Region IV-B, Citinickel alleged that mining operator Platinum Group Metals Corp., which is owned by a certain Rafael Atayde, was engaged in illegal large-scale mining in the municipalities of Narra and Española in Southern Palawan.

The two mine sites, originally owned by Olympic Mines and Development Corp., are being operated by Platinum by virtue of a July 18, 2003 operating agreement between the two firms dated.

As operator of the mine sites, Platinum was allowed to secure two small scale mining permits pending the approval of Olympic’s application for a mineral production sharing agreement.
Issued by Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes in November 2004, each permit allows Platinum to extract no more than 50,000 tons of ore per year per mine site for a period of two years ending November 2006.

However, Platinum allegedly violated its permits by extracting more than 282,729 tons in less than two years of operations in the Narra mining site alone.

Because of this, Olympic terminated its operating agreement with Platinum on April 24.
In terminating the agreement, Olympic cited Platinum’s alleged misrepresentation that it was the owner of Olympic’s mine sites when it applied for its own permit. Olympic executed a deed of assignment on June 9, 2006 transferring and assigning to Citinickel all its rights and interests in the two mine sites.