El Mutún

[1] Located in the Germán Busch Province in the Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia, near Puerto Suárez, it extends across the border into Brazil, where it is called the Serrania de Jacadigo.

[3] A series of attempts have been made to commercially extract the iron ore on the site, including by the Brazilian firm EBX and the Indian company Jindal Steel.

However, the project was blocked by Bolivian president Evo Morales because of environmental concerns; instead of using natural gas available from a pipeline 20 km away, vegetable carbon was to be used for the foundry, demanding 45 hectares a day of Amazonian wood.

[6] As of 2009, Jindal had only invested US$20 million on the Mutun project due to difficulty in securing natural gas supplies from the Bolivian government for the 450MW power plant and ore smelting process.

[12] An editorial in La Jornada alleged that contrary to contract terms, Jindal was mostly interested in extracting iron ore concentrates and exporting the raw material for further processing at its plants in India.