ICL Group, Tel Aviv, has secured a three-year extension of the phosphate mining concession of its subsidiary, Rotem Amfert Negev, in the Negev Desert in southern Israel until the end of 2024. The current concession expired at the end of 2021.
The Finance Committee of Israel’s Knesset approved the extension following the recommendation and request of the country’s Ministry of Energy.
The Rotem Amfert mining concession extension sets forth, among other things, requirements regarding the restoration of the mining and plants areas, ICL said in a statement, adding that it will, if needed, assume Rotem’s responsibilities in this respect and indemnify the State.
Israel’s Globes newspaper reported in December that the Finance Committee would likely approve the three-year extension of the phosphate concession after ICL made a recent payment of NIS23.6 million (approximately $7.6 million at current exchange rates) in recently-assessed back royalties (GM Dec. 10, 2021).
The extension had been on hold while the royalties were calculated (GM Sept. 3, 2021). ICL previously said the concession only has reserves for another three years, according to the Globes report.
But the Israeli government last week suspended its plans for a new phosphate mine at the Negev’s Barir field near the town of Arad and the Bedouin community of Kseifa, as well as the suspension of tree planting in the area.
According to a Haaretz newspaperreport, officially the phosphate mine plan was halted after Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg appealed the plan’s approval.
However, the report, citing unnamed government sources, said the United Arab List (UAL) party, a member of Israel’s coalition government that took power last June, had a major role in the decision to suspend the project.
In October, the Israeli High Court of Justice dismissed petitions filed by the Arad Municipality and other regional municipalities regarding the Barir mining plan and its alleged impact on public health, according to an ICL statement that month. But, according to this latest Haaretz report, the High Court of Justice ordered the State to complete an examination of the public-health implication of mining phosphates in the area before giving final approval for the project.
The mining project will be frozen until government policies on the issue are reviewed, with both economic and environmental aspects to be considered, according to the report. The review is mooted to take place within 180 days.
According to Haaretz, the possibility of canceling the mining project will also be considered.
Israeli environmental groups have long cited the toll ICL’s subsidiaries in Israel have taken on the local environment, including the alleged years-long pollution of the popular Bokek stream from Rotem Amfert’s production activities in the Negev Desert, as well as the alleged contribution of the ICL Dead Sea Works subsidiary at Sdom to the rapid and continued decline of the Dead Sea.