TUBA, Benguet: The municipality may lose P20 million or more in revenues next year, according to Mayor Florencio Bentrez in an interview over the week.

Bentrez said that the effects of the temporary non-operation of Philex Mining Corp. will be felt on 2013.

This is just an estimate, he said, adding that the loss may be higher as there may be case of unemployment if Philex Mining Corp. will stop its mining operations in the province.

On August 1, at the height of typhoons Ferdie and Gener, the Tailings Pond 3 (TP3) of Philex Mining Corp. for the Padcal mines in Itogon, Benguet province collapsed.

There was a major breach in the lower portion of its Penstock A.

The Mine and Geo-sciences Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has suspended mining operations until the breach is repaired and its integrity is assured.

Earlier, sr. vice president Michael Toledo for corporate affairs, said in a message that they have successfully plugged TP3’s Tunnel A.

Philex Mining had started sealing Tunnel A with concrete in September following the successful plugging of the sinkhole at TP3 with concrete spheres.

Toledo explained that the one-kilometer Tunnel A was where water discharged from TP3’s Penstock A, which Philex Mining had also condemned and sealed with cement following the August 1 accident.

The water from TP3, which is currently not used as mine operations have been suspended, would now discharge only through Tunnel B from Penstock B.

Toledo said that Penstock B and Tunnel B would also be condemned and sealed once the spillway, whose actual construction would start next week and take about six months, is completed.