Letpadaung Copper Mine

Letpadaung
Artisanal mines near Letpadaung Mountain. Many of the people who work these mines were displaced by the mine project. They process ore mined by Wanbao
Highest point
Elevation	162 m (531 ft)
Coordinates	22°07′12″N 95°02′13″E / 22.119992°N 95.036995°E / 22.119992; 95.036995Coordinates: 22°07′12″N 95°02′13″E / 22.119992°N 95.036995°E / 22.119992; 95.036995
Geography
Location	Sagaing, Myanmar

The Letpadaung Copper Mine (Burmese: လက်ပံတောင်းတောင် ကြေးနီသတ္တုတွင်း) is a large surface mine in the Salingyi Township of Sagaing Region of Myanmar. Since Myanmar began liberalizing in 2011 the mine has been the site of contentious protest and come to symbolize the shortcomings of political reform. Villagers displaced by the Chinese-operated mine contend that they have not received fair compensation while the company claims that it has been social responsible throughout the process.

Letpadaung is a large mine project operated by the Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd. company, in cooperation with the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd (UMEHL) Wanbao, a subsidiary of China North Industries Group Corp. or Norinco, a large arms manufacturer, bought the project from Ivanhoe, a Canadian mining company in 2011. Ivanhoe had won the initial project from the Myanmar government pursuant to a series of agreements and feasibility studies from 1994 to 1996. The joint venture agreement was signed on April 10, 1996. Ivanhoe divested its share of the project in 2011, citing the impact of the negative stigma of working with the military government on its other business throughout the world. The final agreement with Wanbao, reached after protests in 2012, gave it a 30% share of the eventual profits, 19% going to UMEHL, a massive military-owned company and 51% to Myanmar’s government. A later agreement gave 2% of profits to local development. The project is reported to have cost approximately $1 billion to develop.

Through its decades of economic isolation resulting from Western sanctions, Myanmar found China a critical ally and investment partner. However the large projects undertaken with China often served to exacerbate anti-China sentiment in the country, which has always had a contentious relationship with its northern neighbor. Though a substantial ethnic-Chinese population has long been a part of Myanmar’s demographic landscape, an influx of Chinese immigrants with business connections in Northern Myanmar over the past 20 years has caused tensions and anti-Chinese feelings to rise