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MANILA – (UPDATED 5:25 p.m.) Philex Mining Corporation on Monday said it will build new tailings ponds at its Padcal mine to replace the existing one that had caused several leaks since last month.
In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the country’s biggest listed mining company said construction of the new pond will start once the tunnel leading out of the leaking Tailings Pond No. 3 is sealed with concrete.
The company is completing the spillway that will help drain water from the leaking pond before it is sealed, as well as divert runoff from the mountains away from the leaking pond.
“We’re still working on fully plugging the break in the pond. Right now, we are only sure about building one new tailings pond,” Mike Toledo, Philex spokesman, said.
“However, there might be a possibility that we would need another one aside from this to address the Padcal mine’s needs until 2020, which is its projected mine life,” he said, adding that Philex would build the new facility within the mining tenement of the Padcal mine.
He said construction of a new tailings facility would cost more than P300 million, and would take six months to a year to build.
“That’s a rough estimate, but it could definitely be more,” Toledo said, adding that the amount would cover the main facility, the monitoring technology, the main embankment and the supporting banks, as well as the infrastructure, such as roads, needed for its operation.
In line with last week’s announcement by its chairman, Manuel V. Pangilinan, Philex also said it cut its full-year earnings forecast to P1.7 billion from the previous estimate of P4.8 billion, assuming the worst case scenario of Padcal operations remaining suspended until yearend.
The lower forecast excludes costs and expenses incurred from the repair and rehabilitation of the tailings pond, as well as any fines and penalties the government will impose for the pollution caused by the accidental spill.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources had said the fine on Philex may reach over a billion pesos, triple the P325 million estimate earlier made. The new estimate includes penalties arising from violations not only of the Mining Act of 1995, but also of the Clean Water Act of 2004.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said at least six incidents of accidental discharge happened at the Padcal mine, with only two major leaks reported in the media.
Philex earned P2.11 billion in the first six months of this year. For the entire 2011, the company earned P5.77 billion, or 47 percent more than a year ago.
Pangilinan also chairs TV5, for which InterAksyon.com is the online news portal.
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