Panama has not authorized visits to the Cobre Panama copper mine

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Panama has not authorized visits to First Quantum’s shuttered Cobre Panama mine, the country’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Any entry of third parties to those facilities has been managed unilaterally by the company, without the participation or endorsement of the National Government,” the ministry said.

The statement was shared on X by Minister Julio Molto and stated that Panama’s government is “in the process of contracting a comprehensive audit, which aims to technically and objectively evaluate the current state of operations and their impact on the environment.”

Panama’s statement comes after First Quantum announced on Monday a program of visits to the Cobre Panama copper mining site, which has been shut since 2023 amid an environmental dispute with the country, to tour the site.

The Panamanian government believes the public visits may affect the impartiality of any analysis of the Cobre site and the existing supplies of copper concentrate there.

Before its shutdown, the mine was one of the world’s top sources of copper, accounting for 1% of global output.

(Reporting by Elida Monero; Writing by Natalia Siniawski; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Christian Schmollinger)