Invierno Coal Mine

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Invierno Mine, known in Spanish as Mina Invierno or Minera Invierno, was a coal mine located on Riesco Island in Chile. The mine ceased operating in 2020 and was definitively shut down by a Chilean Supreme Court decision in June 2022.

Location

The satellite photo below shows the mine site in the Seno Otway sector of Riesco Island, Chile. The company's website indicates that the Invierno coal project is located on the ranch of the same name, occupying 1,509 hectares, or nearly a third of the total area of Riesco Island, Chile's fourth largest island.

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Background

Mina Invierno, whose name translates to "Winter Mine," was Chile's largest domestic open pit coal mine. It was the first of five mines planned for Chile's Riesco Island as part of the Mina Isla Riesco project.

A Chilean government commission approved the plan for Mina Invierno in August of 2011. The mine was estimated to have around a 73 million metric ton reserve in 2012. Copec, of the Angelini group, and Inversiones Ultraterra of Von Appen - both subsidiaries of Ultramar - reported an investment of 530 million dollars into the project.

The mine began operating in 2013, with an environmental permit allowing for the production of up to 6 million tonnes of coal per annum.

In June 2019, the environmental court of Valdivia cancelled Mina Invierno's blasting permit, prompting the the mine's board of directors to announce cessation of operations effective November 2019.At the time of the announcement, Mina Invierno was producing 2.3 million tonnes of coal per annum, with plans to increase production to 4 million.

In October 2019, Platts reported that the mine's impending closure, coupled with Chile's recent signing of a new trans-Pacific trade deal, might lead Chile to import sub-bituminous coal from Indonesia to feed the country's remaining coal-fired power plants - all of which must be closed by 2040 under Chile's national decarbonization plan.

Mina Invierno sent its last shipment of coal in April 2020, but its owners continued to appeal the court ruling that led to the mine's closure. In May 2021, lawyers representing Mina Invierno appeared before Chile's Supreme Court of Chile requesting the right to resume mining operations on Isla Riesco, including the use of blasting.

In June 2022, Chile's Supreme Court put a definitive stop to mining at Mina Invierno, upholding a lower court ruling that the use of explosives at the site was inconsistent with prevailing regulations.

Opposition

Numerous groups, including Alerta Isla Riesco, Fima and the Chao Carbon network, spent more than a decade seeking to shut down Mina Invierno on environmental grounds. Following the June 2022 Supreme Court decision, Ezio Costa of Fima stated his hope that Mina Invierno would be Chile's last coal mine and hailed the ruling as a step forward in the fight against climate change. Gabriela Simonetti Grez of Alerta Isla Riesco called it a great victory for the citizens who had spent 11 years opposing the mine.

Controversies

According to environmentalists, the land Mina Invierno is built on is a part of the Reserva Nacional Alacaluf.

In 2013, Mina Invierno was directing 30 percent of the coal to the thermoelectric power plants in the north of Chile and was selling the rest to China, contradicting the initial promise that the plant would reduce Chile's coal imports.

Workers involved with the project say that the working conditions at the mine are dangerous. President of the Mina Invierno workers’ union Miguel Bravo said in 2013 that "the health and safety requirements are not being met. The paths are not wide enough, there are collapses and it is a question of luck whether the trucks manage to reach their destination. The working conditions are very dangerous because of the weather conditions and they fail to comply with Decree 132 governing this type of work."

Conflicts of Interest

Sebastián Piñera was serving his first term as president of Chile when the country approved Minera Isla Riesco. Piñera had a financial interest in the project, the billionaire businessman held 785,609 shares of stock in Copec at the time. Despite the stock being held in a blind trust, the Piñera government's environmental authority's approval of Mina Invierno garnered the president 5 million dollars in profit.

Project Details

• Owner: Empresas Copec S.A. and Inversiones Ultraterra Limited
• Parent company: Ultramar
• Location: Km. 40 of Route Y-560 on Riesco Island, Chile
• GPS coordinates: -53.0006953,-72.4206119 (exact)
• Mine status: Retired
• Start year: 2013
• Mineable reserves: 73 million tonnes
• Coal type: Subbituminus
• Mine size: 1509 Acres
• Mine type: Surface, Mobile Open Pit
• Production: 2.3 million tonnes per year
• Equipment:
• Number of employees: 500

Articles and resources

Related GEM.wiki articles

• Chile and coal

External articles

Wikipedia also has an article on Minera Invierno (Minera Invierno). This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License].