Wenhua Finance reported on November 5 that the local head of US mining company Freeport-McMoRan said on Tuesday that Chile's delay in enacting reforms aimed at speeding up mining permits is a "serious" problem for the country's copper industry.
 
Chile, also the world's second-largest lithium producer, is struggling to overcome regulatory obstacles that miners also believe have slowed project development. President Gabriel Boric's government is pushing for reforms to simplify mining permits while revising environmental assessments. Lawmakers are currently discussing these reforms. At a seminar in Santiago, Freeport's Chile CEO Mario Larenas said, "Permits are a serious problem." He called the legislation "perfect" and "on the right track," but regretted the delay in the legislative process.
 
"Initially, when they were proposed, the idea was to have them ready by the end of the year, but that's not going to happen." Freeport is a gold and base metals producer, especially copper and molybdenum, operating projects in the United States, Peru, Chile and Indonesia. The company plans to invest $7.5 billion to expand its El Abra open-pit copper mine by 2025 and is currently awaiting environmental approval. One of the shareholders in the project (with a minority stake) is Chilean state copper company Codelco.

Shanghai Nonferrous Network
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