A company was fined nearly 800 million VND for violations in mineral exploitation.

In addition, the company was ordered to return 137,748,000 VND of illegally obtained profits and its use of industrial explosives was suspended for two months.

Specifically, Decision No. 54/QD-XPHC dated June 16th clearly states that Hanoi Gemstone and Gold Joint Stock Company committed 13 administrative violations, including:

First offense: Occupying agricultural land (excluding rice paddy land, special-use forest land, protective forest land, and production forest land) within the administrative boundaries of Chau Binh commune. The total area occupied is 1.28 hectares of agricultural land;

Second offense: Failure to properly or fully implement one of the contents of the decision approving the results of the environmental impact assessment report as prescribed (Specifically: The company has not built a system of drainage ditches to collect rainwater runoff; has not built an improved tank (Bastaf) to collect and filter domestic wastewater);

Third violation: The hazardous waste storage area was not arranged to meet the prescribed technical requirements (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the hazardous waste storage facility lacked compartments, containers, and bins for storing hazardous waste, and did not display labels indicating the types of hazardous waste as required);

Fourth violation: Failure to prepare and submit environmental protection reports to competent state agencies as required (Specifically: In 2023 and 2024, the Company did not prepare and submit the annual periodic environmental reports to competent state agencies as required);

Fifth violation: Marking the corner points of the permitted mineral mining area but not in accordance with regulations (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the company had marked the corner points according to the mineral mining license, however, the markers were not in accordance with regulations (the width of the markers was only 10 cm, while the regulated size is 30 cm);

Sixth violation: Failure to install weighing stations at the point where raw minerals are transported out of the mine to monitor and store relevant information (for open-pit mining);

Seventh violation: Failure to prepare complete records, documents, and related materials to determine the actual annual mining output (Specifically: In 2023 and 2024, the Company did not prepare a table of acceptance results for the volume of minerals according to the mining layers using the open-pit method; did not prepare a summary table of the actual annual mining output based on maps, cross-sections of the mine's current status; based on weighing station statistics and invoices/documents);

Eighth offense: Mineral exploitation (excluding sand and gravel from riverbeds, streams, lakes, and estuaries; sand and gravel in inland coastal waters) with a total exploited area exceeding the permitted mining boundary (on the surface) by less than 0.1 ha (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the mining company exceeded the licensed boundary issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment) to the east of the mining area (adjacent to marker number 4) with an area of ​​626 m² exceeding the licensed boundary);

Ninth violation: Failure to submit the approved mine design to the competent state management agency for minerals (Specifically: The company did not submit the approved mine design to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (now the Department of Agriculture and Environment), the Department of Construction, and the Department of Industry and Trade as required);

Tenth violation: Incomplete blasting passport (Specifically: (1) The passport lacks the content “Based on the approved blasting plan”; (2) During the process of preparing the blasting passport, the company did not record the content in section XI - Technical safety measures);

Eleventh violation: Failure to carry out procedures for the import and export of industrial explosives and explosive precursors at the industrial explosives and explosive precursor warehouse (Specifically: From October 2024 until the time of inspection, the Company did not carry out procedures for the import and export of industrial explosives and explosive precursors at the industrial explosives warehouse);

Twelfth violation: Failure to conduct periodic inspections of the lightning protection system as required by law (Specifically: During the use of the industrial explosives storage facility, the Company did not conduct periodic resistance measurements of the lightning rods at the industrial explosives storage facility);

Thirteenth violation: Failure to establish chemical incident prevention and response measures for the industrial explosives storage facility while still putting the project into operation (Specifically: At the time of inspection, the Company had not established chemical incident prevention and response measures for the industrial explosives storage facility but still put the project into operation).