Arnold Rørholt, lawyer and AMR’s Chairman, welcomes the 3rd party intervention in favour of AMR:
“The intervention will ensure that the
“The Western part of the Engebø garnet and rutile province contains around half of the proven reserves in the Engebø deposit, as well as a majority of inferred resources and will support a highly profitable 50 years plus fully underground mining project without a need for deposits on land or in the sea” continues Rørholt.
Arctic Mineral Resources (AMR) and the federations argue that the two mineral categories – owned by the landowners and the state, respectively – have equal rights. Neither obliterate nor take preference over the other. NOM/NRU argues that extraction rights to state-owned minerals eliminate the need to obtain rights to landowner-owned minerals in a given deposit. AMR and the federations argue that AMR’s mineral rights to garnet prohibit NRU from mining the Western half of the Engebø garnet and rutile deposit.
The judgement in the case from the Courts of lower instance gave AMR a partial win; garnet in the Engebø mineral province is owned by the landowners. The verdict opened for NRU to extract ore on AMR’s mineral lease area; however, if AMR could prove to the authorities the commercial viability of mining garnet on a stand-alone basis, NRU would be obliged to compensate AMR for the value of garnet less a share of its operating costs.
AMR has appealed the judgement to the
© NTB Norway, source