Over the weekend, RCN
Radio reported on mine closings in Colombian mining boomtown of Segovia.
According to RCN, the Colombian Attorney General gave the mayor of Segovia
three days to shut down eight illegal mines in the area. The report noted that
the shuttering of these mines would put almost 4,000 miners out of work.
Rubén Darío Gómez, the secretary general of the National
Confederation of Colombian Miners noted that the mines have existed for a long
time, exacerbating security problems with illegal armed groups.
In other news related to illegal mining, late last week Peru
and Colombia finalized
a series of agreements to increase their joint operations against illegal
mining in their Amazon border region. Peruvian president Ollanta Humala told
the press, “Means of coordination between the public forces are increasing to
carry out joint actions against illegal mining, and drug trafficking,
especially in the tri-border region.”
Lastly, the Colombian press covered
with fanfare the first phase of the startup of the expanded Cartagena Refinery,
owned by Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol. This new refinery will rid
Colombia of its need to import gasoline and will boost Colombia’s 2016 GDP by
an estimated 0.6%. Energía16 noted that while the project is very important to
the Colombian government, it attracted significant controversy for vastly
exceeding its original $3.4 billion budget, with the final tally of
construction costs coming at $8.01 billion.
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