Michael Meding: “Argentina has the same mountain range as Chile, you don’t have to be a geologist to see a huge opportunity”

He CEO of Los Azules and vice president of McEwen Copper, Michael Meding, He focused on the importance of mining and the opportunity it represents for Argentina, by being part of the third panel of the CEO quote of Scope Debate.

At the event, moderated by the editor of Ámbito and Energy Report, Sebastian Penelli, Meding explained that Los Azules “is part of the McEwen Copper company, which “It is dedicated to the development of copper mining projects and is number 8 worldwide in terms of resources.”

Regarding its operations in the country, he noted that it seeks to have “the first copper mine based on regenerative principles and the first in Argentina that manufactures directly industrializable copper plates, on a scale that would be Top 30 in terms of production worldwide.”

Although he clarified that the project in San Juan is “in the feasibility stage”, the result of which will be before the middle of next year, he expressed: “We are aiming for a nominal annual production of 180,000 tons, which would be 1.7 billion dollars in exports.”

“We want to supply the internal market of Argentina, which is totally feasible, to give sovereignty in terms of critical material for the country’s industrial development,” express.

Argentina and a mirror opportunity with Chile

Meding pointed out that between Chile and Peru they cover 40% of world copper production and questioned: “Argentina has the same mountain range as Chile and does not produce anything. “You don’t have to be a geologist to say that there is a huge opportunity.”

“This is reflected in the projects we have in the copper mining sector, such as Taca Taca in Salta, Josemaría, El Pachón and Altar. San Juan is the hub of copper development and there is a huge opportunity that in mining terms in the next ten years they can make a very large contribution to copper production, which will have a significant deficit in that decade,” he warned.

In that sense, he recalled that “this can transform regional economies and will benefit those provinces and others that provide a lot of labor.”

The Blues and a “green copper” model

In turn, the Los Azules representative highlighted that the project on Argentine soil aims at the extraction of “green copper”. “This goes from the choice of the plant, because we could have opted for a conventional one but we chose one that has a smaller environmental footprint,” he said, adding that the production process chosen “uses one-eighth as much water as a comparable company.”

“We are making a well 2.4 by 4.2 kilometers in size, we are going to have an impact,” Meding acknowledged, but called “incorporate elements that allow us to be a neutral company in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.”

“We want to implement environmental care to mitigate in the same place and have greater biodiversity and the possibility of species developing. “We want to be a good neighbor and to be said that we are an example of how mining should be done,” he trusted about his vision.

A change in the business climate

Meding illustrated with one sentence the latest steps taken by the government. “Last year they told me ‘What a nice project, what a shame it’s in Argentina.’ In recent months they tell me ‘how interesting, it’s in Argentina’. Today there is no large mining company that does not have some investment in the country,” he said.

When consulted by the RIGI, he stated that “it is clearly a first step on the right path, but one has to ask “why do we need a law that is trying to encourage investment when Argentina should be competitive on its own.”

“It is a law versus decades of broken promises. Trust is gained in grams and lost in kilos. We need to show that we are on the way and can be trusted,” he interpreted.

Regarding these complications, he compared: “If I want to drill, the subway costs me 600 dollars. If I do the same in Canada, it costs me 200, a third of it. It is a combination of taxes, import problems and logistics because there the train arrives at the process plant and here we have to finance our own processes.”