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Senate shelves Pagan mining suspension bill
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Posted on Aug 18 2004
The Senate has shelved a House bill that aims to suspend mining activities on Pagan following the Marianas Public Lands Authority’s granting of a conditional mining permit to an investor, Azmar International.
Senate President Joaquin G. Adriano, who has been supportive of Azmar’s application, said the bill, which was introduced by House Speaker Benigno Fitial, would now be junked.
“It’s useless now. It’s not going to work. We’re throwing it away,” he said.
Two months ago, the House unanimously passed the bill, which had aimed to suspend any new pozzolan mining activity on Mt. Pagan without a comprehensive study. The bill also called for the creation of a task force to oversee the assessment project, which may last for 90 days.
Adriano said that MPLA’s approval of Azmar’s permit application, albeit conditional, was “good news.”
“That’s good news. It’s good thing for MPLA to do that because investments are what we need here,” he said.
He said he thinks the 7 percent proposed royalty fee to the government is “reasonable.”
The MPLA board voted Tuesday to grant Azmar’s request on the condition that it would be able to comply with certain requirements within 60 days.
Primarily, the MPLA wants to see the financial strength of the company. Other requirements include the submission of Azmar’s most recent articles of incorporation; names of its incorporators, officers and shareholders, and how much shares each of them holds; an audited financial statement; personal financial statements of the shareholders; initial capital for Pagan mining; names of investors; names of prospective buyers; and a letter of credit from a bank covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Some authorities believe that there are some 200 million metric tons of high-grade pozzolan deposit on Pagan but MPLA said this has yet to be confirmed.
