The deposits at Cerro Petaquilla were known long before modern mining arrived. During the Spanish colonial era, gold seekers established foundries and brands in the area, and rudimentary mining operations date to the 1600s. A United Nations survey in 1969 confirmed significant porphyry copper mineralization. The modern project took shape across decades of ownership changes, government negotiations, and legal disputes. By the time Canada's First Quantum Minerals acquired a controlling interest, the proven and probable reserves stood at 3.1 billion tonnes -- one of the largest new copper deposits opened globally since 2010. Commercial production began in September 2019. At full capacity, the plant processes 85 million tonnes of ore per year, producing over 300,000 tonnes of copper along with gold, silver, and molybdenum. The three SAG mills and four ball mills installed at Cobre Panama were, at the time, among the largest in the world. A dedicated 300-megawatt coal-fired power plant and a purpose-built port complete the operation's infrastructure.

Panama has long defined itself by transit -- the Canal, the trade routes, the banking sector. Mining was never central to the national identity, and many Panamanians viewed Cobre Panama with suspicion from the start. When the government of President Laurentino Cortizo negotiated a new concession contract with First Quantum in 2023, it triggered something unprecedented: months of sustained nationwide protests. Demonstrators blocked roads, marched through Panama City, and demanded the contract's cancellation. Environmental concerns drove much of the opposition -- the mine sits adjacent to Omar Torrijos National Park and the Santa Fe National Park -- but the anger ran deeper than ecology. Critics argued that the contract gave away too much sovereignty, that royalty payments were inadequate, and that a foreign mining company had been granted rights that superseded Panamanian law. Indigenous and peasant communities, who bore the direct environmental costs, were especially vocal.

On November 28, 2023, the Supreme Court of Panama delivered its ruling: Law 406, which approved the mining concession, was unconstitutional. The decision was unanimous. The justices determined that the contract infringed twenty-five articles of the Panamanian Constitution, spanning sovereignty, fundamental rights, environmental protections, and international law obligations. President Cortizo announced that the mine would close. For First Quantum Minerals, which held a 90 percent equity stake through its subsidiary Minera Panama S.A., the ruling was a financial catastrophe. The company had invested billions in infrastructure -- pits, processing plants, a power station, a port -- all of it now stranded. The mine had generated $524 million in revenue in 2019 alone and had a projected 34-year mine life. Environmental inspectors who visited the site in January 2024 documented the scale of what had been built and what now faced an uncertain future.

Cobre Panama sits idle. The processing plant, the coal power station, the port facilities, and the open pits remain, awaiting resolution of legal and political questions that show no sign of quick answers. First Quantum has maintained that it intends to pursue its rights. The Panamanian public, by and large, has shown no appetite for reversal. The mine's corporate social responsibility program had replanted over 1,000 hectares outside the mining zone, supported the administration of two national parks, and established a biodiversity reference collection of more than 60,000 flora and fauna samples. Whether those efforts were sufficient to offset the environmental transformation of 13,600 hectares of tropical forest is a question the courts answered and the land itself will answer over decades. For now, the jungle around Cerro Petaquilla is quiet in a way it has not been since the first drill bit touched its soil.