The Canadian company Caliber Mining Corp, one of the mining companies with the largest presence in Nicaragua, announced on Tuesday that it has contacted the Treasury Department “to proactively review” the sanctions imposed a day earlier by the United States on the Directorate of Mines (DGM) of the Central American country.
According to the company of Canadian origin and which has a presence in the United States, they do this to guarantee “full compliance with these provisions”.
The Caliber Mining company also renounced three requests for mining concessions, according to a publication in the official newspaper, La Gaceta, on Tuesday.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the DGM to “hold the Ortega Murillo regime responsible for its attacks on freedom of expression,” and according to the US authorities, this measure could be extended to other areas.
Nicaragua has not reacted at the moment to Washington’s sanctions, even though they represent a blow to one of the main sectors of the country. In 2021 alone, about 80% of the gold produced in Nicaragua was imported into the United States, totaling almost a billion dollars.
Ricardo Zúniga, assistant secretary of the Department of State for Latin America, assured on Monday, in a call with journalists, that the announced measures “impose restrictions on any action that has to do with the National Directorate of Mines; that consequently complicates the ability of any entity [in the United States] to have a gold market relationship in Nicaragua.”
And the company Caliber Mining Corp said in this regard that it “reaffirms its commitment to continue to comply with all relevant international laws and restrictions.”
On the other hand, the company expressed that it will report on any market update “once additional information is available, after discussions with its advisers and the United States Department of the Treasury.”
Caliber Mining Corp, according to its website, is a Canadian-listed, growing mid-tier gold producer focused on the Americas with a strong pipeline of exploration and development opportunities in Nevada and Washington in the US and Nicaragua.
Production and sales of almost 200 thousand ounces of gold
In mid-June, the executive director of this company in Nicaragua, Darren Hall, told the local newspaper La Prensa that for this year they projected production and sales of between 180,000 and 190,000 ounces of gold.
Hall further said they had more than 3,500 workers who “benefited” from the company’s work.
In 2020, the Canadian company invested 54 million dollars in Nicaragua in the development of its mining projects, Hall added to La Prensa.
At the moment, no other mining company present in Nicaragua has made a statement.
Nicaragua has been experiencing a political and social crisis since 2018, when protests against President Daniel Ortega arose and were violently repressed, leaving more than 300 dead.
