Terminating the operation of Thach Khe iron mine project

The project to exploit and sort iron ore at Thach Khe mine was terminated due to investors being behind schedule for many years after licensing.

On July 3, the Department of Finance of Ha Tinh province issued a decision to terminate the operation of the iron ore exploitation and sorting project at Thach Khe mine. This project was granted an investment certificate by Ha Tinh province to Thach Khe Iron Joint Stock Company (TIC) from December 24, 2008.

The Department said that the Thach Khe iron mine project is subject to termination of operation according to the Investment Law 2025. Accordingly, the investor does not implement the project after many years of assignment, and is not subject to schedule adjustment.

The Department of Finance also revoked the issued investment certificate. Thach Khe Iron Joint Stock Company is responsible for handling capital, invested assets, project liquidation and related obligations according to regulations.

Thach Khe iron mine is located in 5 coastal communes formerly in Thach Ha district (formerly), discovered in 1960. The mine has reserves of about 544 million tons, and is considered the largest iron mine in Southeast Asia. This area is located 8 km east of Ha Tinh City (old) and 1.6 km from the East Sea. The total land area used for the project is 4,821 hectares.

In 2008, the project was licensed to TIC, with a total initial investment capital of nearly 14,500 billion VND. In the period 2008-2011, workers excavated about 12.7 million cubic meters of soil, at a depth of -34 meters above sea level, recovering 3,000 tons of ore.

The project then encountered problems in mobilizing and contributing capital, leading to a series of consequences such as slow site clearance progress, lack of payment to consulting contractors for technical design and resettlement area construction. In November 2021, the Government stopped the project to re-evaluate the technical design and restructure TIC shareholders.

In early May, the Government continued to request that the project be completed this year.

In an official dispatch sent to General Secretary, President To Lam and Prime Minister Le Minh Hung on May 20, Hoa Phat Group said it is ready to work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment to hire independent monitoring consultants in the process of researching and exploiting Thach Khe iron mine.

If put into operation, billionaire Tran Dinh Long’s company wants to join large corporations such as Vingroup, Thaco, TKV… in restructuring and buying back shares of Thach Khe Iron Joint Stock Company (TIC) – the current investor of the Thach Khe iron mine project. In addition to Hoa Phat, another enterprise also wants to participate in the Thach Khe iron mine project and has sent a proposal to relevant agencies.