Overview

• The Junta de Andalucía delivered final approval on May 30 for Minera Los Frailes’s project to reopen the Seville mine closed since 1998.
• The operation is backed by a €316 million investment and forecasts about 2,000 direct and indirect jobs over a 20-year span.
• The plan calls for underground mining of roughly 45 million tonnes of copper, zinc, silver and lead over at least 17 years without constructing tailings ponds.
• A three-year preopening phase will establish underground galleries, a water treatment plant and a tunnel to manage mine water before extraction begins in late 2027 or early 2028.
• Ecologistas en Acción and other groups have lodged appeals in Andalusian courts, citing risks to the Guadiamar River and the Gerena aquifer.