The world’s largest copper behemoth – Chile – says it will potentially attract new mining investment into the country of more than $104 billion in the next decade – but will need to ensure such forecasts materialise. Addressing the first day in Sydney of the Paydirt 2013 Latin America Down Under conference, Chile’s Mining Minister, Hernan de Solminihac, said if such investment emerged, it would be the highest mining investment in the history of Chile – a country whose copper output commands 33% of global production.
“While we have the largest copper reserves and output in the world – a factor of our mineral potential and public policies – nonetheless we recognise that to maintain such leadership will require a number of challenges to be overcome,” de Solminihac said.
“In terms of global non-ferrous exploration budgets, Chile last year reached a record of exploration expenditure with more than $1,000 million sunk into domestic on-ground work – an effort that saw Chile rise in exploration rankings from seventh in the world in 2008 to fifth place last year,” he said.
“Our exploration commitment over that period represented 5% of global exploration budgets as our suite of high level mineralisation includes gold, molybdenum and silver.
“If however, we get the levels of copper mining investment being talked about, that will increase Chile’s copper output capacity by 49% by the end of the decade for around 8.1 Mt/y of copper concentrate per annum. That compares to around 5.4 Mt at end of 2012.”
He said the challenge for such rapid copper growth would be to ensure an appropriately qualified labour force was available in sufficient quantity, with more than 37,000 people forecast to be in Chile’s mining industry by 2020.
“This copper surge will fundamentally increase our use of sea water, both natural and desalinated with our initial modelling showing some 577% increase in sea water usage
“Our need for more electricity will also have growing pains with demand expected to rise by nearly 70% for mining operations by the end of the decade
“These challenges are part of the reason for Australia and Chile to build much stronger bridges re sharing their mining expertise and involvement, particularly as mining now represents 12% of Chile’s GDP and 59% of its exports.
“Australia is the fifth largest mining investor in Chile, with 9% of the total 39% of foreign investment in the Latin American minerals kingpin.”
“We need to ensure Chile can continue being the ‘engine room’ of the Chilean economy,” Solminihac said.
Chile is the focus of one of the articles in the June issue of International Mining, which is now available to download from http://corporate.im-mining.com/archive_issues.asp
