ISLAMABAD: The legal team of Tethyan Copper, a gold and copper exploration company involved in Balochistan to develop the Reko Diq mine, will reach Islamabad on Wednesday to settle the billion-dollar dispute with the government.
According to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the office of the attorney general had requested a travel permit for the team from February 9 to 15. Following the AG office’s request, the team was allowed to visit the country.
In 2013, the Supreme Court (SC), in a long-running dispute between the Balochistan government and Tethyan Copper Co — a joint venture between Chile’s Antofagasta and Canada’s Barrick Gold — over the right to develop a $3.3 billion copper-gold deposit, ruled against the latter, citing imbalanced stakes.
According to the original agreement signed in 1993, Balochistan holds a 25 percent stake in the project, with Tethyan holding the remaining 75 per cent.
Subsequently, in July 2019, a World Bank arbitration court ordered the government to pay damages of $5.8 billion to Tethyan.
Since then, the government is in talks with Tethyan to settle the dispute. “We have been engaged in negotiations with parties involved in the Reko Diq dispute,” said an official who is part of the team handling negotiations, without providing further details.
The parties have been in talks for an extended period since Tethyan in 2018 expressed willingness to explore a negotiated settlement, Reuters quoted a second official as saying in 2019.
A spokesman of CCA said that Covid-19 protocols would be strictly followed keeping in view the health of the foreigners.
Reko Diq, located in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, is one of the world’s biggest untapped copper and gold deposits. Development of the asset has been stalled for nearly a decade by the long-running dispute.
Following the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) order, Tethyan board chair William Hayes had said in a statement the company was still “willing to strike a deal with Pakistan,” but “it would continue protecting its commercial and legal interests until the dispute was over.”
