Marcelo Mena, Chile’s environmental minister, said on Tuesday it is unlikely for local copper and iron ore producer Andes Iron to revert the ban on the $2.5 billion Dominga iron ore project.
Chilean environment authority, SEA, will meet Andes Iron on Tuesday in an environmental court, after an earlier court hearing this month and several appeals.
SEA was the first to reject the project, followed by a ban from a Coquimbo environmental commission. More recently, in August 2017, a minister council maintained the restrictions on the project.
Since then, Andes Iron has filed appeals and promised to bring the case to higher courts, in an effort to revert the ban on the project, which is expected to produce up to 12 million mt of iron ore.
As Andes Iron meets SEA in court on Tuesday, groups defending and opposing the project have also joined the dispute.
Rosa Rojas, the president of a consulting chair at the country’s Humboldt National Penguin Reserve—one of the groups opposing the project—promised to follow the process closely.
The court’s judge, Daniel Guevara, said there might be a deal if the two parties can agree. But even so, certain deadlines must be respected.