Sergio Sáez F., La Segunda – After the Committee of Ministers – made up of the Ministers of Energy, Mining, Economy, Health, Agriculture and Environment The company will now have to resolve the claims that weigh on two mining investment projects: Diego de Almagro (US$ 475 million), linked to the Angelini group, and the expansion of Cerro Colorado (US$ 467 million) of BHP Billiton.
When should a project be seen by the committee? According to Hans Willumsen, Gisma’s environmental manager, “the projects that enter with an Environmental Impact Study, that have already been approved and that have a series of complaints that were not resolved in the processing process, must by regulation be resolved by this interministerial entity”. It is, therefore, the last administrative instance for the approval of an investment initiative. Subsequently, the only remaining option is to appeal to the environmental courts to reverse their rulings.
Although last year most of the projects resolved by the Committee of Ministers were electrical, for this year mining will lead the committee’s observations.
The Diego de Almagro project is the mainstay of Empresas Copec’s entry into the mining industry with the production of cathodes and concentrate. The initiative, located in the commune of the same name in the Atacama Region, intends to exploit 100 thousand tons of ore.
The other initiative on the committee’s radar is BHP’s Cerro Colorado Continuity of Operations project, which will allow the deposit located in the Tarapacá region to ensure its operation until 2023. In any case, in addition to the observations of the neighboring communities that will be heard by the ministers, there are some parallel judicial appeals that are preventing the mining project from moving forward.
Logbook 2015
According to the latest management report of the Ministry of the Environment, headed by Pablo Badenier, during 2015 the Committee of Ministers resolved 18 projects with reclamation resources for a related investment amount of US$ 7.1 billion.
The entity met on nine occasions and resolved 64 appeals filed by the community and in some cases by the companies that own the investment projects requesting adjustments to their environmental licenses.
As for the productive sectors that passed through the sieve of the Committee of Ministers, there are: 7 energy initiatives, 7 equipment initiatives, 3 mining initiatives and one environmental sanitation initiative.
