Nicaragua-China: Mining Concessions are to Chinese “Intermediaries”
Amaru Ruiz: “These are not mining companies listed on the Chinese stock exchange; they are private capital, similar to the scheme of the failed Interoceanic Canal.”
By Carlos F. Chamorro (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Despite eight Chinese companies having received 25 mining concessions covering a total of 565,000 hectares of land in Nicaragua over the past two years, none of them have a recognized record in mining operations, nor are they listed on China’s stock exchange. All are relatively new, and their main purpose is “intermediation,” said environmentalist Amaru Ruiz, director of Fundación del Río.
In an interview on the program Esta Semana, broadcast on CONFIDENCIAL’s YouTube channel due to television censorship in Nicaragua, Ruiz explained that the Chinese company Thomas Metal, one of the main concession holders, is engaged in “mineral smelting, not extraction processes, but rather in purchasing materials to carry out smelting and later refining for commercialization.”
Ruiz noted: “These are not the Chinese state-owned companies dedicated to mining activities that are respected for using the best technologies,” but rather “private capital companies that were recently established” as “intermediaries” in a scheme resembling that of the failed Interoceanic Canal project.
The director of Fundación del Río, whose legal status was revoked by the Ortega-Murillo regime, warned about the lack of transparency in the contracts for these mining concessions granted to Chinese companies: “Nothing is known about their capacity as investors, nor about their accountability in case of environmental or social impacts on people in the concession territories.”
With the latest concession granted on October 7 to the company Thomas Metal, more than 565,000 hectares of land have now been granted to eight Chinese companies over the past two years—an area larger than the entire department of Managua or Chinandega. What do these concessions represent in relation to the total area allocated to mining in Nicaragua?
The regime has positioned Chinese companies as the second most important players in terms of both concession areas and the number of granted lots, after Canadian capital, which still holds significant areas and the largest number of lots in the country. But this expansion is moving forward and shows no signs of stopping. We are witnessing a rapid transformation in the mining industry, linked to the way the regime is seeking to co-opt and control the sector.
Other investors’ capital is at risk because this setup encourages unfair competition—Chinese companies operate freely with the complicity of the Ortega-Murillo regime. We have seen this in the expropriation of the Los Ángeles plant (in Chontales) and the BHBM plant (in Palacagüina). There have been several examples of the Chinese companies being quickly established and favored, even bypassing existing environmental legislation.
Two Chinese companies, Thomas Metal and Zhong Fu Development, hold 65% of all the concessions granted to these eight firms. Do we know who these companies are and what kind of track record they have in other countries?
We have found that one of these companies was founded in 2019 and has no record of mining extraction or exploitation. Its profile lists operations in the city of Zhengzhou, and it is also linked to a company called Brother Metal Limited. The Nicaraguan subsidiary, Thomas Metal Nicaragua, also has operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but these began only very recently.
Thomas Metal is headquartered in Zhengzhou, but it is not listed on any stock exchange and has no history of significant mining investments. Its activity focuses on metal smelting, not extraction. This shows that the regime’s partnership with this Chinese company is not necessarily aimed at developing extraction projects, but rather at purchasing mining materials to carry out smelting and refining for commercial purposes.
These are very new companies with little experience in managing mining concessions. They are not China’s established state-owned mining corporations listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange. Instead, they are private-capital firms, following the same pattern as the failed Interoceanic Canal project—subsidiary companies that reinvent themselves, recently created, with little information available about their capacity or accountability in the face of potential environmental or social impacts on people living in the concession areas.
What are the characteristics of these concessions? What obligations do the companies have regarding environmental protection, investment, or even job creation?
Not many responsibilities are established. In fact, the regime has made it easier for mining operations by amending the Protected Areas Law in early March, allowing mining within protected areas. Thomas Metal was one of the direct beneficiaries of these concessions, which include areas inside the Indio Maiz Biological Reserve, as well as other protected zones within the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, and southeastern Nicaragua.
In addition, the regime modified the environmental assessment system, reclassifying these mining projects as Category Two, which removes the requirement for environmental impact studies and eliminates public consultations that had been mandated under the Environmental Evaluation System Decree. The regime is changing the environmental framework to allow these companies to set up operations without public knowledge—municipal governments are no longer issuing the certifications; instead, the Office of the Attorney General is granting them.
Municipal authorities are also unaware of what the regime is granting within their territories. By the time they find out, representatives are already arriving to try to negotiate the land located there, and the local population is worried because they don’t know how they will be compensated—whether they’ll be paid the market value or the public registry value of their land.
In which municipalities or departments are these concessions located? Are they concentrated in certain areas?
The concessions are mainly located in the Northern Caribbean, the Northern Pacific, and the Southern Caribbean regions. In the Southern Caribbean, this is a new development, since these are not historically mining districts, and the Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve covered much of the Río San Juan department and parts of several municipalities in the Southern Caribbean, including Bluefields and Nueva Guinea—areas that had never experienced mining activity because they were protected reserves. The new concession areas are now being established in the southeastern region.
In the case of the Northern Caribbean, there is a long history of mining in the mining triangle, which has been expanding. The new Chinese concessions are also located in this area, particularly near other municipalities such as Puerto Cabezas. In the Northern Pacific, they are found in Chinandega and Villanueva, as well as in Dipilto, Jalapa, Palacagüina, Murra, and several other north-central municipalities.
These Chinese companies are clearly operating in Nicaragua with state support. Do they have Nicaraguan partners, whether public or private?
The information we’ve been able to gather only reaches as far as the legal representatives, lawyers, and firms responsible for setting up these companies in the country. The agreements between the concession holders and the Directorate of Mines—which allow the State to grant these mining reserve areas—are not known, nor is it clear whether there should be a public-private contract between the Directorate of Mines and these Chinese concessionaires.
That contract is not public. What appears in La Gaceta (the official government gazette) does not specify the amount of investment, if any, nor the scale or technology these mining companies intend to use—whether open-pit or underground mining—how much they are investing in the area, or what extraction methods they plan to employ, such as the use of cyanide or mercury.
There is no information on how these companies are being established or what their investments are, nor is there clarity on what profits the Nicaraguan state will gain from these contracts, which should be public. This makes it very difficult to know who the actors behind these operations are. From photographs, we have seen regime operatives involved, and we are trying to identify them by name. So far, what has occurred appears to be a form of intermediation.
Have they begun any extraction work, or are they only processing what other companies were producing in these mines?
There is already some processing underway. In November, we will release a report on this topic. We have found that one Chinese-owned company is processing and exporting mining material abroad, while another acts as an intermediary, processing material from the Caribbean and northern regions and exporting it. Other companies are involved in intermediation, buying artisanal mining material, processing it at certain facilities, and using other export-licensed companies to move the material.
What is developing between the Ortega-Murillo regime and the Chinese concessionaires is very dangerous, because it essentially amounts to selling to any Chinese buyer to justify intervention in the mining sector. The Ortega regime is bringing in Chinese investors so that, in any scenario where these Chinese businesses face risk, China could intervene to defend both the Ortega regime and those investments.
According to public records from the Chinese Embassy in Nicaragua, there are no mentions of Chinese mining investments in the country. Chinese investments in Nicaragua are in other sectors, such as energy, airport construction loans, and commercial sectors, but not in mining.
In the ranking of mining companies by importance in Nicaragua today, how do the two major Chinese concessionaires compare to the existing ones?
None of the Chinese companies are listed on the major stock exchanges in China, and this is a significant concern because we don’t know who these actors are or how serious they are in the mining industry. We do know that there are Chinese state-owned mining companies that operate in China and are respected for using the best technologies, but these are not the companies coming to Nicaragua.