The Chairman of the Board of Codelco, Máximo Pacheco, together with the Executive Chairman of the Corporation, André Sougarret, met this week with the Chairman of the Board of the Japanese company Mitsui & Co Ltd, Tatsuo Yasunaga, who was visiting Chile.
At the meeting, they addressed different issues of interest to both companies. They are both close partners in Anglo American Sur (the operating company for the Los Bronces copper mine), where together they have owned 29.5% of the property since 2012 (Codelco on its own has 20%). Anglo American holds the 50.1% majority while Mitsubishi has 20.4%.
“We have been partners with Mitsui for several years at the Los Bronces operation. These types of meetings help us strengthen this relationship, evaluate how it is working and strengthen it. We have enormous opportunities for cooperation in the fields of innovation, knowledge and future business,” Pacheco said after the meeting.
Sougarret stressed that in addition to discussing business issues, they also talked with Mitsui about generating a framework agreement to work together more closely, particularly on development and technology issues. This meeting in Chile builds on a previous meeting between the companies in November 2022 in Tokyo, where they talked about strengthening their alliance in areas like best practice and innovation. On that occasion, Mitsui offered its experience in matters such as renewable energy, hydrogen and the circular economy, among others.
“We are confident that investments in Chile have not been affected by COVID, nor by the war between Russia and Ukraine. We believe that Chile has a great opportunity for future growth,” said Yasunaga, who was accompanied at the meeting by Kazutaka Shiba, CEO of Mitsui Chile, and Yoshio Onishi, CEO of Mitsui Mineral Resources Development Latin America, among others.
Mitsui is one of the largest holding companies in Japan. With investments in six business areas – metals, machinery and infrastructure, chemicals, energy, lifestyle, and innovation – it is present in 65 countries, has almost 500 subsidiaries and companies, with more than 42,000 employees worldwide and more than US$100 billion in total assets.
As an example of its position in mining’s circular economy, Mitsui is now part of an international JV called Kal Tire Recycling together with Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group, the leading international mining tyre supply and management company, aimed at advancing mining tyre recycling solutions for mining regions around the world. The JV includes Kal Tire’s pioneering mining tyre recycling facility in Antofagasta. The thermal conversion recycling facility uses heat and friction to induce a reaction that converts large mining tyres into their base elements (fuel oil, steel and carbon black) so they can be reused.
