Mineração Vale Verde has received the operating license for its Serrote mine in Craíbas and Araparica, in Alagoas, Brazil.
The State Council for the Protection of the Environment (Cepram) gave the final approval after the Alagoas Environmental Institute completed its scrutiny of the mine.
The Serrote mine in Alagoas will produce 22,000mt of copper equivalent annually over an estimated life of 14 years, while its processing plant has a capacity of 4.1mn mt of ore per year.
Earlier this week, Vale Verde announced that it had completed construction of the mine and plant, three months after acquiring a $140mn line of credit for the project.