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.
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 exploration 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.