Intex keeping 'low profile' in Mindoro mining site

Norwegian-backed miner Intex Resources Phils. Inc. is reducing its presence in its Mindoro mining site after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) revoked its environmental certificate. “They have not yet abandoned the project but maintain a low profile," Benjamin Philip Romualdez, president of Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, said in an interview this weekend. Intex’s mining concession covers some 11,216 hectares situated in the towns of Victoria, Pola, and Socorro in Oriental Mindoro, and in Sablayan in Occidental Mindoro. The mining firm’s environmental compliance certificate was temporarily revoked when members of the clergy, local government units, and residents of Mindoro questioned the presence of Intex in the area. On Oct. 14, 2009, former DENR Secretary Joselito Atienza granted Intex an environmental certificate, which local leaders objected to because of an existing 25-year moratorium on mining activities in Mindoro by virtue of an ordinance. However, Environmental Management Bureau director Juan Miguel Cuna had said the issuance of the environmental certificate was “not in any way meant to countermand the provincial government’s declaration of the moratorium." Intex’s application for an environmental certificate was in line with the requirements for a project’s entry into a locality as provided for in Presidential Decree 1586 or the Philippine Environmental Impact Statement System. COO Jon Steen Petersen of Intex said the company would revise its resource estimate for the $2.4-billion mining project, which is designed as a traditional truck and shovel operation. Intex alleged that approximately 74 percent of the total material to be mined is ore.—With Jesse Edep/JV, GMANews.TV