The Ecuadorian province of Imbabura is poised to become the epicentre of a major copper mining transformation, which will require the removal of dozens of families. The project in question is named Cascabel, control of which has passed into the hands of Jiangxi Copper Corp, China’s largest copper cathodes producer. Following a long gestation period, Cascabel could be about to accelerate towards construction.
The largest copper mining project in the country, Cascabel would exploit Ecuador’s northern Andean copper belt, specifically the Alpala and Tandayama-América deposits. It occupies 5,000 hectares in Imbabura, which is near Ecuador’s border with Colombia. According to the government, Cascabel could ultimately deliver the world’s largest underground silver mine, third largest gold mine and sixth largest copper mine.
Although this project has been in the works for almost two decades, 2026 could prove decisive, Hugo Arnal, director of sustainability at SolGold, tells Dialogue Earth.
Cascabel had been an asset of Australia’s SolGold, in which Jiangxi Copper Corp (JCC) previously had a 12% stake – the largest share. In the final days of 2025, JCC announced it had finalised the acquisition of SolGold in a deal worth USD 1.2 billion. In a statement, JCC said Cascabel “has the potential to contribute immense value” to global mineral supplies. The transaction was formalised in March 2026.
Beyond the mining world, however, Cascabel is a source of controversy. Some 300 people will need to be relocated to make way for Ecuador’s latest “supermine”, while environmental experts fear the project is moving forward amid a lack of environmental oversight.
Mining boom
According to data shared with Dialogue Earth by the Mining Chamber of Ecuador, the sector’s exports generated USD 3.23 billion between January and October 2025. Mined materials are the country’s fourth most lucrative export (excluding oil products) after shrimp, cocoa and bananas.
The Mirador copper project and Fruta del Norte gold mine are the country’s two other large-scale mining projects.
Arnal tells Dialogue Earth that studies are underway in pursuit of Cascabel’s environmental licence for the exploitation phase: “We want to demonstrate that responsible mining is possible by minimising environmental impacts and maximising social benefits. We estimate that the footprint of our infrastructure and the affected areas will be less than 630 hectares.”
However, conservation advocates and organisations are concerned about the lack of public information on the project and its potential impacts. Dialogue Earth talked to José Cueva of the National Anti-Mining Front (FNA), an NGO supporting communities threatened by extractive activities. He says that, despite its large scale, the project is “moving forward in secrecy”. He claims: “This is a project about which very little is known.”
The proposed start dates have been repeatedly moved. SolGold tells Dialogue Earth that mining at the Tandayama-América deposit will now begin three years earlier than planned, in 2028. This will be open-pit mining, which yields resources sooner because it does not require tunnelling underground. The company adds that a larger underground mine will begin extraction in 2032.
Environmental oversight faltering
Critics fear the project will proceed with a lack of environmental oversight. Ecuador’s environment ministry has been merged with the energy ministry, and the government has frozen the bank accounts of some environmental foundations and leaders, including those who protested the government approval of a mining project. In October 2025, regulation was issued that categorises mining projects as economically strategic, and limits the potential for communities and NGOs to oppose them.
Mining waste is a major concern. The water conservation non-profit Yemanyá has used publicly available information to estimate that the mine will produce 2 billion tonnes of tailings during its first 25 years. That is equivalent to 91 tonnes of tailings for each person living in Ecuador.
Tailings
Mining tailings are the sludge that remains once minerals are extracted from ore. They contain processing chemicals and naturally occurring elements, such as arsenic, which become toxic when exposed to air or water.
“It’s a huge mine and they’re going to [dig up] unimaginable amounts of mineralised soil. That soil contains arsenic and heavy metals,” explains Carlos Zorrilla, executive director of Intag Ecological Conservation and Defence (Decion), named after Imbabura’s Intag Valley. This NGO monitors and has opposed mining projects that pose an environmental threat to the area.
In September 2024, mining consultant Steven H Emerman prepared an analysis on behalf of the Rainforest Information Centre, an NGO which has been working to secure legal protection for the Intag region against mining. It concludes that the tailings management plan is “not sufficiently advanced”. Emerman points to the lack of both geotechnical tests of tailings samples and foundational analysis of the proposed tailings storage facilities. His report also claims the consequences of any tailings dam failures has not been modelled.
Arnal clarifies SolGold will follow national and international standards for tailings storage. These facilities will be located within the concession, he says, but exact locations have not been disclosed. “The mine does not impact the rivers, but a risk analysis will be carried out in the Mira River Basin, which is part of its environmental impact studies,” he adds.
Eduardo Rebolledo, a biologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in the northern coastal city of Esmeraldas, says such assessments should have been carried out by now. He tells Dialogue Earth that nearby rivers like the Cachaco and the Paramba will be affected. Rebolledo also points out that pollution of the Mira River basin, shared by both Ecuador and Colombia, could affect Colombian territory.
Initial plans for a 150-km pipeline to transport copper concentrate to Esmeraldas city, in the neighbouring province of the same name, have been ruled out for now. Arnal says this may be reconsidered, however: “If in 20 years we say we have to build it, that’s another matter, but for the exploitation phase, it is not being considered.”
Zorrilla says any alternative plan to transport materials by road would generate more carbon dioxide emissions, which would be at odds with SolGold’s efforts to present the mine as low-carbon.
Community relocations
While the project has faced other complaints relating to unauthorised drilling and a lack of community consultation dating back several years, today a potentially thornier issue is that of Cascabel’s community relocations, which Arnal says impacts some 69 families. They are expected to be consulted in the coming months over the “consensual involuntary resettlement”, as SolGold characterised it to Dialogue Earth. Meanwhile, the company says it has already purchased about 50% of the land that it requires within the concession area.
Dialogue Earth contacted representatives of the municipality and the population, but all declined to comment, citing a fear of retaliation from the company and flouting the law on interfering with mining projects.
Despite these questions, the project continues moving towards its exploitation phase. SolGold is planning road expansions and the start of an Alpala access tunnel build later this year.
Cascabel has gone from being a long-term prospect to becoming a rapidly expanding “supermine” in development. According to Arnal, “Cascabel is not simply a mine to be operated solely by Solgold, it is much more than that: it is a project for the development of the Ecuadorian state, which will have a strong impact on social welfare.” It may take years to establish if the project lives up to this socially conscious vision, or if gaining a foothold in the race for copper takes precedence over Cascabel’s impacts.
