MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. construction company Vulcan Materials on Monday denied any “unlawful expropriation” of its investments in Mexico and said it remained open to a negotiated settlement with the Mexican government.
The company has been at odds with Mexico for years after authorities ordered it to halt limestone extraction at its Vulcan mining operation in the coastal state of Quintana Roo in 2022 due to environmental damage, a charge it denies.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last week that the site had been closed, not expropriated, and that it would remain closed at least until he leaves office in October.
Vulcan said in a statement on Monday that the shutdown was “arbitrary” and that it could not produce or sell materials “due to the arbitrary actions of the Mexican government attempting to force us to abandon important investments in the region.”
President Lopez Obrador last year outlined plans to provide 6.5 billion Mexican pesos ($391 million) to buy the land on which Vulcan Materials operates and resolve the dispute, but the company said it had no intention of selling the land.
“The truth is, we have never received a ‘generous offer’ to purchase the property,” Vulcan said Monday.
“We were given an unsigned, undetailed, unofficial appraisal that grossly undervalued our assets, including the limestone reserves we own under Mexican law and the only deep-draft port in the region.”
(1 dollar = 16.6440 Mexican pesos)
(Reporting by Kylie Madrid and Raul Cortes Fernandez; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Sarah Morland)
