Aethel Mining company’s implementation project at issue
Five years after mining resumed in Torre de Moncorvo in the early days of the pandemic, work has come to a halt, with the extraction of iron aggregate suspended.
The news follows the rejection of the final phase of the implementation project for the mines, which represented a long-term investment by Aethel Mining of €550 million.
When Portuguese environment agency APA issued its veto, it was presumed that Aethel would come back with a reformulation plan, particularly as the demand for iron aggregate has soared since the war in Ukraine.
The company, described as British and led by entrepreneurs Ricardo Santos Silva and Aba Schubert, has said it is not prepared to sell and is actively looking for other investors. The plan, according to local reports, is to ‘adapt the mine’s operation to the new industrial reality’, taking into account that ‘the steel industry has undergone profound changes’, especially ‘with the attempted transition to green steel’, which ‘faces significant challenges’.
The Torre de Moncorvo iron ore mines were the region’s largest employer in the 1950s, employing up to 1,500 miners. Mining was suspended, however, in 1983 after the bankruptcy of the company then in charge, Ferrominas. ND
