Commentaries

Following Accident that Trapped 33 Miners, Regulations Force Owners to Sell

This post comes from MineralRightsForSale.com
Santiago, Chile – May 2nd, 2012 – In the year and a half since 33 miners were trapped underground in the San Jose mine, Chile has enacted new regulations to provide better protection for workers’ safety.

As a result, the owners of small and early-stage mining properties have become more eager to sell their concessions.

“After San Jose, mining became more complicated. It’s killed small mining companies,” explained Antonio Urzua, who owns the rights to 26 mining properties in Chile’s Atacama Region. “With the new norms, it takes four years of bureaucracy and millions of pesos to start producing copper. Only bigger companies can afford it.”

For miners like Mr. Urzua, the best option is to sell their properties to investors with the capital to transform early-stage properties into modern mines.

One company, MineralRightsForSale.com, has been carrying out an extensive survey of mineral rights registrations in Northern Chile and has found dozens of smaller mines who cannot cope with the extra regulation.

“While there are number of government programs to help these smaller mines”, say James Kennedy, Managing Director at MineralRightsForSale.com, “the extra overhead is still pushing many to partner with bigger companies.”

This consolidation may prove to be a good thing in a country which has been criticized for having too many small concessions.  It is also providing an opportunity for investors and larger companies.

The MineralRightsForSale.com Property Intelligence Service is the result of contact with hundreds of mineral property owners.  When the most motivated sellers respond, the team collects geological and legal data, as well as detailed descriptions of each seller’s history and plans for the property.  Clients receive 4-6 property profiles per month.

This service is aimed at exploration companies, which purchase and develop early-stage properties.

These profiles help to accelerate the process of finding the right sites among Chile’s two million mineral concessions, which are registered to 60,000 different owners. Chile is the world’s top copper producer, with more than one-third of the world’s copper output.

Company Info:

Mineral Rights For Sale was set up in order to improve communication between exploration managers and those seeking to promote their properties. We are supported by the Chilean Government but work with a mandate to provide quality information on mineral rights for sale, worldwide.

Contact:

Leslie Forman
MineralRightsForSale.com
leslie.forman@mineralrightsforsale.com
+56 9 6659 0672 (Chile)