Mina Muga, project to build a potash mine on land in the municipalities of Sangüesa (Navarra) and Undués de Lerda (Aragon), has been approved as a mining concession by the central government and the two autonomous governments involved. A This fundamental procedure comes seven years after Geoalcali (a subsidiary of the Australian company Higfield Resources) started managing this mining project in 2014, the first of these characteristics in Spain that is finally going to become a reality, in the words of Ignacio Salazar, CEO of the firm. «We already wanted. They are complicated projects. We achieved the environmental authorization in June 2019 – I don’t know if there is another sector subjected to a level of scrutiny like this – and now from the preparation of permits we are going to go on to prepare the construction“He said, and predictably”work begins in spring 2022” on the terrain.
It will be, according to Salazar, in about eight months when machines will already be seen working to start the works of Mina Muga. It is necessaryhe explained, that several requirements converge pending: have obtained the necessary municipal licenses; that has been closed with Acciona, the main contractor of the work, the definitive project; that the financing of the project is achieved with several European banks, and that you are prepared andhe miner commissioned from the manufacturer Komatsu, measuring 5 meters wide and 25 meters long, which will be used to make the two entrance ramps to the mine and later to start the mineral, potash, «Essential for the fertilization of crops».
Salazar, CEO of Geoalcali and CEO of Mina Muga, recalled that The two mine openings are in the Aragonese part, while in Navarra two plants will be built for the reception and treatment of the mineral, although these, he pointed out, will need a longer execution period, of two and a half years, that is, that Muga mine will not be operational until late 2024. His buildingSalazar recalled, it will mean the hiring about a thousand people, while later for the exploitation it will require from 500 to 800.
At present, he stressed, the decisive thing is to obtain financing, “Credit for more than 200 million”, to move forward and in the spring of next year see machines already working in the two mine openings of the Aragonese part of six meters wide by five high and ramps of three and a half kilometers underground to access the mineral that is 350 meters deep. “The price of potash is skyrocketing and being on the Australian Stock Exchange, that helps for Australian investors,” he said.
«Having obtained the mining concession is a fundamental milestone “, stressed Salazar, satisfied to have achieved the most difficult – although the financing has yet to be closed – to make a reality a project with a 30-year viability, which “decisively addresses the problem of rural depopulationl, since by its very nature it must be located where the mineral is found “and that unlike others”has the capacity to generate investment, employment, R&D and industrial development », he stressed. The manager acknowledged that he is concerned about the rejection that Mina Muga provokes in some detractors, but that until now the support for the project has been the majority.
CHA asks to stop it and criticizes that the Government has given it the green light
The CHA Secretary General, Isabel Lasobras, regrets the decision of the Ministry to grant permission for the start-up of the Mina Muga project, considering it “unsustainable” and asks the Government of Spain to provide an explanation. In addition, Lasobras, via a statement, endorses «all the arguments made by the platform against the Bal d’Onsella and Sierra del Perdón potash mines». And, remember, that already in August 2020, during the public exposure period, CHA presented arguments to “restart the environmental processing” and “carry out an external evaluation of the complete project.”
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