Corriente Resources

Corriente Resources Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	Mining
Founded	1992
Headquarters	Vancouver, Canada 49°17′07″N 123°06′59″W / 49.285220°N 123.116452°W / 49.285220; -123.116452 Quito, Ecuador 0°10′43″S 78°28′46″W / 0.178517°S 78.479419°W / -0.178517; -78.479419
Key people	Kenneth Shannon (CEO) Daniel Carriere (Senior VP)
Products	Copper
Employees	98 (2008)
Website	www.corriente.com

Corriente Resources' office in the Mansión Blanca Building in Quito.

Demonstration against Corriente Resources in Gualaquiza, Ecuador.

Corriente Resources is a multinational corporation based in Canada that plans to open an open-pit copper mine in the Ecuadorian rainforest.

History

Corriente Resources exists since 1992. Around the year 2000, it entered into an agreement with mining giant BHP Billiton, buying mining concessions in the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador.^[1]

Through a community relations campaign, Corriente Resources was able to win over many of the inhabitants of the area that will be affected by the mine, spending money. However, in 2006 a local resistance movement was formed, which then took some mining camps. Another group of locals, supported by the corporation, resisted the take, and there was a fistfight.^[2]

Corriente Resources currently has the support of Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador.^[3]

Due to its economic power, Corriente Resources not only has influenced Correa, but also local authorities in Zamora Chinchipe and Morona Santiago provinces, where the corporation operates. In early 2009, during a demonstration against the corporation in the town of San Miguel de Conchay in Morona Santiago, the village chief, Hernán Samaniego, issued a death threat against Vicente Zhunio, one of the copper mine's opponents.^{[4] [5]}

Mirador Project

Mirador is Corriente Resources' main project in Ecuador. It is located on coordinates 3°34′12″S 78°26′05″W / 3.570046°S 78.434687°W / -3.570046; -78.434687, near the town of Gualaquiza on the western slope of the Cordillera del Cóndor mountain range.^[6]

Corriente Resources plans to extract 30 thousand tonnes of copper ore per day for about 17 years, producing a sum total of 145 million tonnes of waste, which will be dumped near the open pit, in the middle of the rainforest. Corriente Resources believes it will use 10 thousand cubic meters of water per day, an amount equivalent to the water used by 20 thousand people in Ecuador's cities daily. Corriente Resources plans to build a dam near the Quimi River to hold the water produced by the mine.^[6][7]

Corriente Resources plans to invest $533 million upfront.^[6]

To export the copper, Corriente Resources will build port facilities in Puerto Bolívar on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, 250 miles from the mine.^[6]

On July 2009, Corriente Resources announced it had gotten the go ahead from the Environment Ministry and the Water Department of Ecuador to begin digging the open-pit mine.^[8]

Substantial Shareholders

The following own 5 percent or more of Corriente Resources' stock:^[9]

Name	Occupation	Business Address	Share of Stock
David Lu	Financier, Managing Member of Hedgehog Capital LLC	1117 East Putnam Avenue Suite 320 Riverside, CT 06878	10.9
Daniel Carriere	Executive, Senior VP of Corriente Resources Inc.	800 West Pender Street Suite 520 Vancouver, BC V6C 2V6	6.1

References

1. ^ Corriente Resources. "History". http://www.corriente.com/corporate/corporate_history.php. 
2. ^ Santiago Kingman. "Minería en territorio Shuar". Ecuador Terra Incognita. http://www.terraecuador.net/revista_54/54_mineria_condor.html. 
3. ^ Corriente Resources. "Annual Report 2008". http://www.corriente.com/media/PDFs/financials/CTQ_08_final_SEDAR.pdf. 
4. ^ Amnesty International. "Urgent Action". http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa13209.pdf. 
5. ^ Coordinadora Nacional Por la Defensa de la Vida y la Soberanía. "Ecuador: Carta al Ministro de Minas y Petróleos". http://nomineria.blogspot.com/2009/05/ecuador-carta-al-ministro-de-minas-y.html. 
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Corriente Resources. "Mirador Copper-Gold Proyect: 30,000 TPD Feasibility Study". http://www.corriente.com/media/PDFs/news/technical_reports/MIRADOR_30K_Report_FINAL_SEDAR.pdf. 
7. ^ FAO. "AQUASTAT". http://www.fao.org/NR/WATER/AQUASTAT/main/index.stm. 
8. ^ Corriente Resources. "News Release". http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1345564/000120445909001266/ctq072009f6k.htm. 
9. ^ U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "Company Information: Corriente Resources Inc.". http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?type=SC+13&dateb=&owner=include&count=20&action=getcompany&CIK=0001345564.