Torre de Moncorvo, Portugal, March 12, 2025 (Lusa) - Five years after mining resumed in Torre de Moncorvo on 13 March 2020, work has come to a halt, with the extraction of iron aggregate suspended.

On 13 March 2020, after 38 years of abandonment, the first phase began when machines and workers returned and started crushing the stone at the Mua site to turn it into iron aggregate, a raw material sought after for various purposes, such as the construction of breakwaters for the development of parts of the Portuguese coastline.

This announcement was made at the time by the mine's concessionaire, Aethel Mining, with a planned investment of €550 million over 60 years, at a time of difficult times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 4 July 2022, Aethel Mining said that the war in Ukraine had caused demand for iron aggregate mined there to soar, with pre-sales for the next 18 months.

The company was continuing its preparations to move ahead with the second phase of the mine and was then expecting to produce the first batch of concentrate in 2024.

The Torre de Moncorvo iron ore mines were the region's largest employer in the 1950s, employing up to 1,500 miners. However, mining was suspended in 1983 after Ferrominas's bankruptcy.

FYP/ADB // ADB.

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