Pascua Lama
Pascua-Lama is an open pit mining project of gold, silver, copper and other minerals. Pascua Lama is located in the Andes mountains, in the southern reaches of Atacama Desert, straddling the border between Chile and the Argentina Northwest at an altitude of over 4,500 metres. Toronto-based Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold mining company, is developing the project. Due to its proximity to glaciers, Pascua-Lama has caused controversy and public protest in Chile, including demonstrations and petitions presented to the Chilean government. Chile has not approved the project. Pascua-Lama contains estimated deposits of 17 million ounces of gold and 635 million ounces of silver, with 75 percent of the deposits in Chile and 25 percent in Argentina. As of late 2017, the Barrick project remains on hold. The company reported a U$5.1-billion impairment charge on the asset before suspending development in late 2013. Barrick had spent around US$5 billion of Pascua-Lama's reported US$8.5 billion capital expenditure at that time. Barrick said it is taking a "fresh look" at Pascua-Lama with the intention of developing a "scalable starter operation" that could be built underground in Argentina. The company is expected to release a prefeasibility study on the new plan by early 2018. Legal background There is a long-running Court action (Action No. C-1912-2001) in Chile found on the Court's website, initiated in 2001 by a professional mining agent (representing miner Jorge R. Lopehandia), Mr. Villar, regarding mining rights for an 8,400-hectare plot of land in Chile, 3,400 hectares of which lie superimposed with two other claims, with one of which, "Los Amarillos 1-3000", allows mining of salts and nitrates only, and the other, Tesoro, was filed by Barrick's mining agent atop both of the Los Amarillos 1-3000 claims and the Amarillo Sur claims obtained by Barrick in the referenced Court-disputed transaction involving a purchase price of $20. All of these Claims are located superimposed partially over Barrick's Pascua Lama mine. Barrick contends the Claims dispute involves the scenario where "The lone road to Barrick's Pascua Lama mine snakes through Mr. Villar's claim, however even if Barrick doesn't win the appeal against Mr. Villar, Barrick can still continue to use this road to as Mr. Villar would only control mining rights to the disputed territory, not surface rights." The Court case is now moving to a final conclusion at the Supreme Court level in Santiago's 14th District Court, which is hearing evidence of Barrick's connection with the registered owner of the Tesoro Claims, Hector Unda Llanos. Unda Llanos has sworn opposing statements to the Chilean Courts, variously, that he has no connection to Barrick nor its subsidiaries, and also, in a separate but related Court Case in Chile, that he is Barrick's employee. These opposing statements were sworn to the Court ostensibly to suit Unda Llanos' needs at the time, to benefit Barrick's position in these two Court cases, brought by or on behalf of Jorge R. Lopehandia. Barrick has consistently represented that it owns all Claims in the Pascua project area