We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Hi Quady, well matey, we all have differing views as to where the company will be in 6-12-18-24 months......thats what makes this board tick along. Our thoughts are very similar......lets see how it all unfolds down the line!
Good luck matey.
Thank you Damers, the point is that it is true.
Anyone taking over Solgold would have to build the relationships with various agencies to continue Alpala to production.
That could take years.
woops - you did ref Solgold at start of sentence so my apologies Quads.
However, all those who believe that statement to be true are complete and utterly bonkers.
Damers if you knew about this company, you would know it's true.
It's not me that said it. It was Ingo.
You know it’s true DBW.
Hopefully TheSlug is up in ether with that giant ostrich egg ready to crack.
Exciting times matey........................
Lol Damers
Can’t read his posts
Did he really say that ?
'no one can build Alpala faster than Solgold' - come on now Quads.
Next you will be saying 'the children of Solgold' will be extracting the ore using traditional methods!
Good afternoon Copperpot, I too hold your view.
May I add Solgold said some time ago that no one can build Alpala faster than Solgold.
I believe the reason this was said is in order to build Alpala, you have to have to have a good working relationship with the mining authorities and Government. In order to get the permitting done ASAP.
Solgold have that, if we were sold, whoever brought us wouldn't.
DBW indeed great read solgold have a fantastic relationship with all communities emply many have a plant regeneration program and fruit production what's not to like !!
Tx DBW,
I agree copperpot- what with up to 900 workers in Ecuador now, 93% of which are locals, it might unnerve the government and local communities if a bruising major took complete control.
So perhaps the best deal for all parties might just be a JV with solg selling a major chunk of their holdings and retaining a small portion of the mine but guaranteeing the workforce’s future. This might even be a government directive going fwd perhaps?
Z
Good morning DBW, great read, thanks for sharing it mate. I said way back that the government will have the final say, irrelevant to how large a bid lands. I honestly think the government would prefer Solgold to take this all the way through to production. Solg ñeed the government on side, the government need the locals on side, Solg have fantastic trust with the local communities and officials! For me, trust/understanding and empathy with the locals is paramount at this early stage of Ecuadorian large scale mining! I honestly dont see how the majors can muscle their way in when local communities are still getting their "mining acceptance" feet under the table. In my mind the message is "don't rock the boat"! Maybe this is why no offers are landing! I think Solgold will be involved with the production side of things and also as a mediator. I think the govt is more than happy with the working relationship between community and Solg. Solgold may be just the start of a National State Mining Company.
Just my musings (but thoughts I've held for a long time).
5) The most important projects making their way through the development pipeline are B2Gold (TSX: BTO; NYSE-AM: BTG) and AngloGold Ashanti’s (NYSE: AU; JSE: ANG;) joint venture on the Gramalote project. Harris has noted continued postponements of the JV’s feasibility study. “They keep saying it’s for optimization purposes, but the fact is Colombia has a presidential election at the end of May. I’m sure a part of that is also waiting to see how the land lies in a couple of months,” he said
Meanwhile, AngloGold’s Quebradona project keeps running into permitting roadblocks. Just recently, an appeal on the environmental permit application was archived, leaving the company to start the process from scratch.
Also in Colombia is the Soto Norte gold project, which Aris Gold (TSX: ARIS: US-OTC: ALLXF) has taken over. “There’s a lot of community relations damage management to be undertaken before they can really resume a development path,” Harris said.
The most advanced stage project in Ecuador is Dundee Precious Metals‘ (TSX: DPM) Loma Larga gold project. This project, too, has been held up by a protracted community engagement process to iron out the path forward.
However, recent development successes include Lundin Gold‘s (TSX: LUG; NASDAQ: LUG) Fruta del Norte gold project and the Chinese-owned Mirador copper project.
The Ecuador development pipeline also looks healthy, with SolGold‘s (TSX: SOLG; LSE: SOLG;) Apala deposit at Cascabel being a project of note and Solaris Resources’ (TSX: SLS; US-OTC: SLSSF) Warintza copper project rapidly coming through the pipeline.
Courtesy of Grumpy
4) “But communities are the same as in Australia, Canada, and the U.S.; they don’t want a copper mine in their backyard. That’s the same hurdle that must be overcome as in other jurisdictions.”
Mazumdar also points out that massive infrastructure deficits in each of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru continue to hinder investment in mineral exploration and development. At the same time, all three jurisdictions had shown significant sensitivity to projects located in the headwaters of vital rivers.
“Water is a big issue – not only usage, but effluent, how you impact the water,” Mazumdar said.
He added that there’s a challenge in bridging the culture gap too, where local subsistence farmers are generally loathe to sell their land for a one-time payment. “They measure their wealth in land ownership, which can stop mining projects for better or worse,” said Mazumdar. “These places have the same sort of risks to development, just like most parts of the world in terms of local opposition; all are highly endowed.
“If I had to rank them, in terms of investment friendliness, more companies are seeing opportunities for exploration and development in Ecuador, followed by maybe Peru, and when it comes to Colombia, it’s still a bit problematic with respect to their acute dislike of open-pittable resources,” Mazumdar said.
3) Frozen out
From a mining standpoint, Peru is essentially frozen out of the investment landscape at present because of President Pedro Castillo’s left-leaning policies.
Joe Mazumdar, an economic geologist and analyst at the popular newsletter Exploration Insights, says that while Peru was indeed at one point the largest exporter of copper into China, beating Chile, it remains a critically important sector of the economy. “But what we’ve seen in the last three years was changing governments, bringing in the left-leaning government that gives more voice to local opposition to oppose mine development and infrastructure. The economy is sometimes at the mercy of communities cutting off roads and hindering products from getting to ports, Mazumdar said. “The instability has made reinvestment in Peru an issue, so people are looking at other places.”
In Harris’s view, Castilo doesn’t necessarily have firm control over the country. “The politicians are doing whatever they want, the community is doing whatever they want, and investors hate uncertainty,” Harris said.
“My perception is a lot of things are on hold. A lot of decisions are on hold,” he said.
The biggest is perhaps Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM) with its stalled Yanacocha sulphides expansion. “The company has made the investments to get 100% ownership, but it keeps knocking the financing decision from quarter to quarter. I think they’re looking for a clear line of sight on when the stability will return,” Harris said.
He underlined that stability was critical for a US$2.5-billion investment spanning several decades.
Harris sees investment trickling into Ecuador and Colombia on the exploration front. Neither country is building a mine now, but both have projects getting close, some of substantial size.
In contrast to Peru, both Colombia and Ecuador are promoting investment, hoping to seize the opportunity to benefit from the energy revolution and provide the “green copper” and other metals the world needs. “Fantastic, but that will remain a pipe dream unless Colombia and Ecuador can establish the beneficiation chains to add downstream value to their exports,” Harris said.
2) Harris also notes the country’s gold sector as being robust on a regional level.
By comparison, Ecuador has only been focused on developing its mining industry in the past two years. The current crop of legislation is perhaps only five to 10 years in the making. “So, it’s still very, very young. But things are really starting to happen in the form of some significant advanced-stage projects. And there’s a lot of exploration going on,” Harris said.
He has observed the Ecuador and Colombian governments struggle with broadly similar issues at different times.
“Issues regarding community engagement, issues with water, with forestry – governments want mining and support mining, but that feeling doesn’t necessarily percolate down to the middle levels of government that do things, and the grassroots communities where it’s done,” he said.
“But both governments recognize that mining is important and should be an important part of the economy, and they’re becoming much more involved as an actor.”
According to Harris, the current focus on community engagement was partially the respective governments’ own making. “In the past, both governments tended to leave companies to their fortunes, saying, ‘Here’s your concession, now go away, do what you need to do.’ But as you can expect, there was a lot of community resistance, and companies didn’t necessarily engage very well,” said Harris.
“So, the governments had to step up to the plate to become the ‘oil in that wheel.’ It’s happening a lot in Colombia, and I can see that happening in Ecuador.”
Because of this phenomenon, Harris says ESG had in some ways ‘come out of nowhere’ and had become an acute focus from the community relations perspective.
“ESG has empowered impoverished people that had been largely marginalized for more than 200 years. People feel empowered to have a voice and express it and say, ‘I’m not okay with this.’”
Harris believes companies will have to do a better job of engaging and, ultimately, become better at sharing the wealth their mines generate.
1) When mining in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs is simply not enough to guarantee success.
Instead, mineral explorers and developers often see substantial projects halted in their tracks by staunch community-level opposition, even when projects had passed regulatory muster, says mining sector researcher, analyst and reporter Paul Harris, in an interview with The Northern Miner.
The analyst suggests those wishing to do business in these jurisdictions take a more holistic approach toward meaningful engagement with host communities before engaging governmental authorities about their respective projects.
The solution, according to Harris, is for companies to be willing to give up an ownership stake in their projects so that local communities and local and federal governments have more skin in the game.
“There is a tonne of options on how companies can make stakeholders see things through the lens of a shareholder,” said Harris. “When host communities can sit down and plan what their revenue over the long term will be, whether it’s five per cent of US$100 million per year over three decades, they can translate that benefit into economic development in the communities supporting any particular mine,” he says. “That’s what meaningful stakeholder engagement looks like.”
He suggests it’s high time for companies operating in these jurisdictions to stimulate the creation of Indigenous-owned companies geared toward servicing the mining sector. In Canada, First Nations in British Columbia and elsewhere have risen to the challenge of creating economic spinoffs from mining operations in their regions.
There is a greater push in these regions for a more inclusive mining industry than ever before, given the focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment principles.
While Colombia, Ecuador and Peru hold tremendous mineral endowments, their supporting mining legislations are at different stages of development, which impacts exploration and production, notes Harris.
In his view, Peru’s legislative environment is the most advanced of the three, given about 20 years of development. During this time, mineral exploration and mine development thrived, helping it to become, for a period, the second biggest exporter of copper to China. It remains a vital copper exporter today, albeit at lower levels.
“Social engagement can make or break mining investment in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru”
Anyone access this I can’t til Monday
https://www.northernminer.com/exploration/colombia-ecuador-peru-social-engagement-can-make-or-break-mining-investment/1003841929/