{"id":1135691,"date":"2019-08-30T11:37:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1000705"},"modified":"2019-08-30T11:37:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T16:37:21","slug":"top-miners-in-chile-sign-deal-to-help-countrys-small-producers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1135691","title":{"rendered":"Top miners in Chile sign deal to help country\u2019s small producers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than a dozen global mining<br \/>\ncompanies with operations in Chile signed this week a deal that would see them renting<br \/>\npart of their properties to small-scale miners, which sell their output to state<br \/>\nmining&nbsp;development corporation&nbsp;ENAMI.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Top players including BHP, Barrick<br \/>\nGold, Anglo American, Antofagasta Minerals, Lumina Copper, Freeport-McMoRan, Teck Resources,<br \/>\nLundin Mining, KGHM and SQM, will deal directly with ENAMI.<\/p>\n<p>The body, in turn, will sublet the<br \/>\nproperties to artisanal miners, which will carry out extraction and exploration<br \/>\nthrough more than 840,000h in Chile\u2019s arid and copper-rich Atacama<br \/>\nregion.<\/p>\n<p>Those properties, local paper <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latercera.com\/pulso\/noticia\/grandes-mineras-firman-convenio-facilitar-arriendo-pertenencias-pequenos-productores\/797921\/\" >La Tercera reports<\/a>, account for less than 1% of revenue global miners that signed the deal earn from production.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>BHP, Barrick Gold, Anglo American, Antofagasta, Freeport-McMoRan, Teck Resources and SQM among the companies that will rent part of their Chilean assets to small miners.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>In early August, copper prices fell<br \/>\nto $2.53 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange,<br \/>\nthe lowest level since 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Although 93% of Chile\u2019s copper<br \/>\noutput comes from large mines, a sharper drop in prices for the red metal could<br \/>\nsend small and medium-sized mines over the edge. Those operations generally<br \/>\nemploy up to 80 workers, but are often much smaller, while medium-sized ones<br \/>\nhave a maximum of 400.<\/p>\n<p>Another issue affecting the sector<br \/>\nin Chile is that the bulk of exploration is in the hands of major miners, as is<br \/>\nquite cheap for them to hold a property \u2014 only $2 per hectare for exploration<br \/>\nprojects and $5 p\/h for those already in exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCompanies have no incentives to do anything with those assets, most of them brownfield projects, and that needs to change to both boost exploration in the country and let juniors in,\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;Diego Hern\u00e1ndez, president of the Chilean mining&nbsp;society,&nbsp;Sonami,&nbsp;and a former Codelco CEO, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/juniors-struggle-compete-majors-exploration-chiles-mining-society\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">told MINING.COM last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In other places, such as in South Australia, companies have to demonstrate they are working on their properties or else risk losing them. Charles Moore, from the State\u2019s government, warns that unfortunately there are always ways to trick the system. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome companies do the very minimum just to keep ownership of their assets,\u201d Moore, who is leading the development and implementation of South Australia\u2019s copper strategy, noted.<\/p>\n<p>Data from the Chilean copper<br \/>\ncommission (Cochilco) shows that some similar may be happening in the South<br \/>\nAmerican nation. Of the 110 mining companies with interests in the country, 74<br \/>\nare junior miners with exploration projects, from which only 33 have reported some<br \/>\nactivity in the last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Major global producers will rent part of their properties to small-scale miners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,369,2640],"tags":[43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1135691"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1135754,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135691\/revisions\/1135754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1135691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1135691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1135691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}