Cerrejón coal mine Colombia
Sectors: Coal Mining Active This profile is actively maintained Send feedback on this profile
By: BankTrack Created before Nov 2016 Last update: May 19 2021
Contact: Alex Scrivener, Policy Officer, Global Justice Now
Project website
Status
Planning Design Agreement Construction Operation Closure Decommission
Sectors Coal Mining
Location
Status Planning Design
Agreement
Construction
Operation
Closure
Decommission
Website http://www.cerrejon.com/site/
About Cerrejón coal mine The Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, Colombia, is the largest in Latin America and one of the largest in the world. Its steady expansion since its founding in 1976 has led to the destruction of whole villages populated by local indigenous and Afro-Colombian people. The extracted coal is almost exclusively for export to rich countries with local people seeing few benefits. The mine is owned by three giant UK-listed mining companies: BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Glencore. All of which receive billions of pounds in finance from UK banks and pension funds.
Roche, Chancleta, Tamaquitos, Manantial, Tabaco, Palmarito, El Descanso, Caracoli, Zarahita, Patilla. These are the names of just some of the communities that have been devastated or simply wiped off the map by the Cerrejón mining project.
Latest developments
Anglo American to exit from Cerrejon shareholding, BHP Group to follow Feb 25 2021
Glencore leaving, passing mining contracts to Republic of Colombia Feb 4 2021 Impacts
Social and human rights impacts While the Cerrejón mining company's promotional material gives the impression that it is helping the displaced communities, the reality is that the mining company has used underhand tactics to buy off individuals and sow internal division within the communities. So while a few people in the village of Roche were paid extra money to leave early, others who decided to stay, faced power cuts and water shortages that lasted for weeks at a time. Local people have formed an organisation, FECODEMIGUA, to defend their interests and demand compensation.
In 2011, the mining companies behind Cerrejón approved plans to expand the mine further, which would have required the rerouting of 26 kilometeres of the Rancheria river, the main river in La Guajira province. This "P500 project" was vehemently opposed by local people as the river is their main water source. In November 2012, the mining companies announced that they were suspending studies into the rerouting of the river. Although welcome, the local communities do not believe that this stay of execution will last for long. The companies are still planning to expand the mine by other means and local villagers still face being forced to leave their homes.
The project spans a vast 69,000 hectares of land in the middle of the territory of the indigenous Wayuu people, who share the area with people of African descent, local farming communities and other indigenous groups. The indigenous are facing health and humanitarian crisis besides being culturally weakened and divided by the presence of Cerrejon and other socio-economic influencers such as tourism. Malnutrition and dehydration with contaminated water lead to many illness. Wayuu children suffer with stunted growth and a range of diseases, including chronic diarrhea, respiratory and skin problems, vision loss and more. While the Wayuu represents 38% of La Guajira’s population, Wayuu children accounts for 90% of childhood mortality in La Guajira between 2014-2016. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the entire socio-economic and cultural structure of the Wayuu as their elders and adult women are vital to the traditional hierarchy, beliefs and economy. Existing malnutrition and pre-existing respiratory conditions mostly due to air pollution from nearby coal mine are linked to more vulnearble immune systems of many Wayuu and less effective in fighting off novel respiratory infections like COVID-19.
The Cerrejón mining company has exploited cheap labour and forced mine workers to live and work in conditions that have damaged their health. According to the coal mine workers' union, Sintracarbon, 700 workers at Cerrejón are suffering from serious health problems as a direct result of the inadequate working conditions at the mine. Workers have to work 12 hour shifts and do not receive adequate medical attention. Pro-union workers have been reportedly intimidated or sacked and replaced with casual workers who are paid less than their permanent counterparts. In 2008, one union leader, Adolfo González Montes, was tortured and killed in his own home.
Conditions got so bad that Sintracarbon called a strike in February 2013 which ground Cerrejón to a halt for over a month. While the workers of Cerrejón are struggling to improve their conditions, things are even worse for indigenous groups like the Wayuu who are not getting these jobs at all. They make up just one percent of Cerrejón's workforce, despite the fact that 45 percent of the local population is indigenous.
Women have also seen scant benefit from the mine, as 94 percent of the jobs at Cerrejón go to men.
Environmental and climate impacts The mine has also caused broader environmental damage to local rivers and habitats. The coal dust from the mine has caused respiratory problems for local people and workers.
Climate change is already having an effect on Colombia. Warming has already led to an 82 percent reduction of glaciers in the Colombian Andes. Prolonged droughts together with mass-scale coal mining and the damming of a principal waterway resulted in scarce and contaminated water supplies. Cerrejon coal mine uses large volumes of water from the Rancheria River as well as groundwater. To continue everyday operations at the coal mine approximately 2,700,000 liters of water per day is needed.
Colombians have done little to cause this problem. The country’s per capita carbon footprint is under a fifth of the UK's and 11 times less than that of the USA. The Cerrejón mine, however, is making a major contribution to climate change. Every year 32 million tonnes of coal are exported from the mine, mostly to European and North American countries. With the expansion of the coal mine, the companies behind Cerrejón hope to increase this figure to 40 million tonnes. This means that, while local people use very little of the coal, they are having to deal with the effects of climate change, caused by the emission of 82 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. That is more than the carbon footprint of the entire country of Colombia. If they are successful in burning all the known coal reserves at Cerrejón, the resulting carbon emissions, at over 13 billion tonnes of CO2, would be equivalent to Colombia’s domestic emissions for 184 years.
Governance
Applicable norms and standards
1972 Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping Wastes and other Matters
Alliance for responsible mining
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
ILO Safety and Health in Coal Mines ILO Safety and health in opencast mines
ILO Safety and health in the iron and steel industry
International Council on Mining and Minerals (ICMM)- 10 Principles
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
Safety and Health in Mines Convention
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Updates
Anglo American to exit from Cerrejon shareholding, BHP Group to follow Feb 25 2021 Anglo American plans to exit thermal coal production by 2024. In order to make its operations more sustainable, the company intends to exit from shareholding "in the Cerrejon thermal coal operation in Colombia in a responsible way and within three years”. Glencore already announced their exit on February 5th 2021. BHP Group also intends to abandon its stake in Cerrejon over the coming years.
Glencore leaving, passing mining contracts to Republic of Colombia Feb 4 2021 Glencore, one of the three shareholders of the Cerrejón coal mine, confirmed that its Colombian subsidiary Prodeco is leaving the country and will commence the process of handing its mining contracts back to the Republic of Colombia. It will be passed on to the National Mining Agency (ANM). The mines will stay on care and maintenance until the formal process of relinquishing the contracts is complete. Prodeco claims they "will engage with its employees, contractors and host communities on the impact of relinquishing the titles...".
NGOs file a complaint against Cerrejón coal mine before OECD Jan 20 2021 A coalition of NGOs led by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) filed a complaint against the Cerrejón coal mine before the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). They demand the closure of the Cerrejón coal project. NGO's are concerned about “serious human rights abuses and devastating environmental pollution” at Cerrejón including the forced displacement of Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities and the environmental pollution resulting in high cancer and metal intoxication rates in surrounding communities.
Colombia's longest coal strike at Cerrejón ended after 3 months Dec 1 2020 On August 31 2020, the largest union at Cerrejón Sintracarbon went on strike due to proposed changes in benefits, a new work schedule called the ‘death shift’ and job losses. Sintracarbon union demanded a 6% salary increase in addition to health, education and housing benefits. The strike ended on December 1st, 2020. Cerrejon will pay unionized workers 10.75mn Colombian pesos ($3,000) in a one-time bonus and increase the salaries for 2020 with 3.8 percent tied to the inflation rate and salaries will also be tied to inflation for 2021-23.
At the Coalface: Ten more years of UK coal burning a lifetime on the ground Jan 18 2016 According to London Mining Network: following the UK Government's plans to phase out coal-burning power stations by 2025, Coal Action Network have released a report tracing and examining the places, coal burned in the UK, is coming from. And while the Government's announcement hints at a step in the right direction, the prospect of ten more years of demand will still prove deadly for many local communities.
Cerrejon Coal wants to reroute a river to get at more Colombian coal Aug 4 2015 The manmade rerouting of a precious river: Uniguajira, the University of La Guajira, highlights potential risks of new extraction plans. By Doris-Elin Salazar.
Cerrejon Coal, Colombia: “an abusive marriage, full of machismo” Jun 24 2014 Richard Solly, coordinator of London Mining Network wrote: for nearly fourteen years, I have been working in support of communities affected by the Cerrejon coal mine, a vast opencast mine in the province of La Guajira, Colombia. I have just returned from a visit to the area, my first in ten years - and it was a massive, eye-opening shock. Financiers
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