Peru Politics; Bear creek 2000 KM to South EastAccording to our country manager, Javier Fernandez, the revocation of the concession granted to Bear Creek had to do with the fact that their property (Santa Ana) is located within 50km of the Bolivian border. Below are some of his comments on the matter:
- According to the Constitution, foreigners cannot have a property within 50km of the border inside the country. This is, unless the government gives authorization following a long process and recommendation by the Secretary of Defence.
- Bear Creek’s Santa Ana mining property is located inside this 50 km border between Peru and Bolivia in the department of Puno.
- The original government authorization to Bear Creek for the Santa Ana property had some problems and an irregular process, which Javier believes makes this a unique and single event.
- The government did not cancel the mining concession of Santa, just the authorization to have a property within this 50km border of the neighbouring country.
It’s important to note that the political environment in Puno is quite different than that of Cajabamba (where Sulliden is located). The Shahuindo property is not located near the border, and is in an active mining area (Barrick, Newmont, Goldfields, Buenaventura, etc) where projects have recently been permitted and gone into production (La Arena, La Zanja, etc). You can see on the map below that Shahuindo is approximately 2000 km away from the Bear Creek property on the Bolivian border, and I can confirm that we have had no social or legal issues on site and the exploration and field work activities are progressing as planned.
Hope this helps, and please don’t hesitate to contact me for further information.