London-listed base minerals explorer EMED Mining (LON:EMED) enjoyed a 6.5% bump in its share price Wednesday on news that the government of Andalucia is supporting a restart of its Rio Tinto copper mine. The mine has no connection to the Anglo-Australian mining giant of the same name.
EMED said “the Junta de Andalucia has made clear public policy statements committing support for the company’s plans to restart the Rio Tinto Mine as soon as possible, the most recent such statement being in Minas de Rio Tinto last week by the Minister for Economy in Andalucia.”
A legal challenge to the mine plan by the mine’s former operators and adjoining lawnowners, including management of the tailings dam, was dismissed by the judiciary, EMED stated.
The tailings dam has been an obstacle to restarting the historic copper mine, which by some accounts dates back to the Phoenicians and could be the fabled mines of King Solomon, according to andalusia.com.
The dispute centred around the fact that EMED needed to buy back some of the land supporting the mine’s tailings dam after it was sold off to local businessmen, EMED states on its website.
The mine’s Cerro Colorado open pit contains an estimated 2.1 billion pounds of copper in the measured and indicated category. EMED said it plans to restart the mine in the third quarter of 2012, and to begin producing ore at a rate of 9 million tonnes per year starting in 2014.
Image of a square in Seville, Spain, capital of Andalucia, is by Shutterstock.
