Colombia urges Glencore to discuss Cerrejon coal mine closure with local authorities
Colombia’s government on Friday said it will ask miner Glencore to meet with authorities in the northern province of La Guajira as well as community representatives to discuss the closure of the Cerrejon coal mine, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines, the Ministry of Mines and Energy said in a statement on Friday.
Glencore operates the Cerrejon mine under concession, and the license is due to expire in 2034. The Cerrejon mining operation includes a large mining site, a 150-kilometer-long railway line, and a port on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
“We don’t have to wait for the remaining years of the concession to run out,” Edwin Palma, Minister of Mines and Energy, said in a statement calling for closure talks.
Glencore and the Cerrejon mine did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In July of last year, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he was prepared to unilaterally amend Glencore’s concession contract if the company continued to export the mine’s coal to Israel. The company said that it had complied with Petro’s request.
Cerrejon ended 2025 with a production of 16.8 million tons of coal, a 12.5% decline compared to the 19.2 million tons reported in 2024.
The closure discussions between Glencore, local authorities and community leaders would address “investments in energy, but also in workforce retraining, workforce development, and new ventures centered on clean energy,” Palma said in a statement.
Petro, whose four-year term ends in August, banned the signing of new exploration contracts for hydrocarbons and minerals such as coal to drive a transition toward clean and renewable energy.
(By Nelson Bocanegra; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Sarah Morland)
Nine dead in mining accident in Colombia
05.05.2026, 11:16 Uhr
Nine miners have died in an accident in central Colombia.
Six other workers were rescued alive following the explosion at the coal mine in the town of Sutatausa, north of the capital Bogotá, the National Mining Authority (ANM) announced on Monday.
The injured were taken to a nearby hospital and received medical treatment, the authority said.
According to the authority, safety deficiencies were identified during an inspection in early April. The inspection highlighted the danger posed by coal dust and the potential build-up of methane gas.
Appropriate measures to improve safety were recommended, ANM said. It announced that it would further strengthen its supervision of mining operations.
In coal mines, inadequate ventilation can lead to the formation of explosive mixtures of gas and dust.
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