Madrigal said that in abeyance to the people’s court processes and rulings, they may be forced to take the necessary steps on certain “incorrigible individuals who have been duly warned but whose crimes continue to inflict irreversible damage on our people, our land, and our waters.”
He warned that the NPA will continue to conduct direct punitive measures on Sagittarius to pressure the company to abandon the project.
Anticipating NPA attacks, the company, which is still at exploration stage, hired the services of Catena Security, Inc., an affiliate of England-based Group 4 Securicor, one of the world’s leading security firms.
Doria said that Sagittarius’ decision to award the security contract to Catena starting this March was to professionalize the security measures in the mining company.
Roy D. Antonio, Sagittarius senior coordinator for corporate affairs, earlier said that more than 100 guards will be hired, mostly from the local communities, and eight new security guard posts will be established in the firm’s tenement which includes the towns of Columbio in Sultan Kudarat and Kiblawan in Davao del Sur.
In December, top investor Xstrata Copper released a new estimate that pegged resources at the entire mining site at 2.2 billion tons, up 10 per cent from the last estimate declared in April 2006.
The upgraded measured, indicated and inferred resource totals 2.2 billion tons at a grade of 0.6 per cent copper and 0.2 grams per ton gold and contains 12.8 million tons of copper and 15.2 million ounces of gold using a 0.3 per cent copper cut-off grade, the company said in a statement.
The new mineral resource, which includes 24,700 meters of drilling conducted in 2007, also includes estimated average grades for molybdenum of 70 parts per million.
Previous estimates pegged resources at two billion tons, containing 11.6 million tons of copper and 14.6 million ounces of gold at a 0.3 per cent copper cutoff grade. (Bong Sarmiento/davaotoday.com)
