Business News Americas reported that community leaders in the Germán Busch province of Bolivia's Santa Cruz department announced that they could begin an indefinite general strike this week to press for a solution to reactivate the El Mutún iron and steel project.

A representative of the Pro Santa Cruz civic committee told BNamericas that “The objective is that the authorities determine the future of the project this week and if there's no solution, to put pressure on them with a general strike.”

According to the representative, pressure tactics will include closing roads along the border with Brazil and closing pipeline valves that supply gas to the neighboring country.

He said “We're hoping the situation does not escalate to such measures.”

The civic leaders are requesting that the government and India's Jindal Steel & Power, which operates El Mutún, reach an agreement to continue the development of the mine, which is in jeopardy after JSPL informed the government in June of its intention to terminate their JV. The company threatened to end the JV due to not receiving access to the necessary lands along with the lack of gas supply required for the project.

The JV agreement was signed between the Bolivian government via state steel company ESM and state miner Comibol, and Jindal in 2007, and contemplates the mining and industrial processing of 50% of the iron ore deposit. The contract included an investment of USD 2.1 billion over 8 years, during which revenues for Bolivia would have been USD 200 million per. The project contemplated a 95% local workforce and would have created 4,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs.

Source - BNAmericas

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