Mining in Panama

Minera Panama, a subsidiary of Canada´s First Quantum Minerals, one of the world’s top copper producers, announced that the mine reached its full production in 2019. MPSA’s mining concession, which consists of 12,955.1 hectares, is located 120 kilometres west of Panama City and 20 kilometres from the Caribbean Sea coast, in the district of Donoso, Colon province, in the Republic of Panama.

Minera Panama is a US$6.7 billion investment and has 3.0 million tons of proven and probable reserves. This mine thus constitutes one of the largest new copper mines inaugurated worldwide in the last decade. The production complex includes two open pits, a processing plant, two 150 MW power plants and a port. Commercial production began in 2019 and at current full capacity the plant will process 85 mtpa of ore and produce more than 300,000 tons of copper per year along with gold, silver and molybdenum.

In the Los Santos province in south-western Panama, 255 km from Panama City, is the Cerro Quema project – a smaller, five-year lifespan mine owned and managed by Canadian company Orla Mining Ltd. The concession grants Minera Cerro Quema, a wholly owned Panamanian subsidiary of the aforementioned company, the exclusive rights for the extraction of gold and silver for 20 years, over an area of 768 hectares. They are getting ready for construction financing. Additionally, there are a number of exploration projects ongoing and a lot of potential.