Chile's supreme court rules in favor of Sierra Gorda storage facility

Chile's supreme court ruled in favor of private port operator Antofagasta Terminal Internacional (ATI) over the construction of a copper and molybdenum storage facility at its facilities in the country's northern Antofagasta region (II).

The US$43mn facility is designed to store copper concentrate from the Sierra Gorda copper-molybdenum mine, a JV between Polish miner KGHM International and Japan's Sumitomo. The mine recently started production.

The higher court ruled unanimously in favor of the project and dismissed a lower court ruling issued in February, which had halted construction of the facility.

This is the third project since April that has been given the go-ahead after an initial ruling had blocked its construction. In April, the Copiapó court of appeals ruled in favor of Goldcorp's US$3.9bn El Morro copper-gold project and in May the supreme court ruled in favor of local non-metallic group SQM to expand one of its operations.

The petitioners against construction of the project claimed that the storage facility violated their constitutional right to live in a pollution-free environment.

In its ruling, the supreme court said the claims against construction of the project were filed after the passing of the deadline for challenges to an environmental permit resolution.

The project includes a conveyor belt to carry concentrate from a railway line to the storage facility, and fixed conveyor belts to transport the product to the shipping terminal.

Ports and logistics company SAAM and holding Empresas Navieras each control 35% of ATI. The remaining 30% belongs to rail company FCAB.