The Dominican Republic announced it will establish a state-owned mining company to explore and exploit the country’s strategic resources.
The Dominican Presidency said in a statement that Empresa Minera Dominicana S.A., or Emidom, will be established to explore, exploit and asses the economic viability of the country’s natural resources, particularly those related to rare earths.
Emidom will be attached to the Ministry of Energy and Mines. It will have nine board members, tasked with negotiating contracts and forming alliances with international firms. The board will be led by the minister of the Presidency.
The state-owned mining firm will oversee the management of the Avila mining reserve in the Southern Pedenales province that borders Haiti. In 2018, the region was declared an area of interest by the Presidency and should be explored to source rare earth projects.
The US military in 2023 sent a team of engineering researchers to the region to work with local authorities to evaluate the areas viability.
The researchers discovered that the region has a high level of rare elements but needed the resources and expertise to define the size of the areas and whether the concentration of materials available were economically viable to exploit.
The Dominican Republic is home to the Barrick Gold-operated Pueblo Viejo mine, the largest mine in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Barrick Gold’s reported net earnings in the second quarter of 2024 were $370m, this up from of $295m in the first quarter of the year.
According to Mining Technology’s parent company, GlobalData, the Dominican Republic has 36 mining projects in total, 31 of these are in the exploration stage, two are fully operational. The remaining three mines are in separate stages, prefeasibility, feasibility and closure.
