Survey of Exploration Companies, 2018
DEPP 22 /2018
Intellectual Property Register © 298989
Survey of Exploration Companies in Chile, 2018 I
Executive Summary
Since 2012, COCHILCO has produced an annual survey and characterization of exploration companies in Chile. The study identifies small and medium-scale exploration companies; it does not include major companies and their projects in Chile. In the 2018 version of the survey, 110 companies with exploration projects in Chile were identified. Out of these, 74 are junior companies, 16 are intermediate companies and four are state-owned, whether local (ENAMI) or from other countries. The remaining 16 are joint ventures that declare a budget independently of their owners. The companies are mostly from Canada and Australia (60% of the total) and they raise financing principally by placing shares on stock exchanges. Out of the 110 companies identified, only 51 reported activities at their projects in 2018. The study identifies 300 exploration projects related to these companies. In just over half of these projects, copper is the target mineral (57%), followed by gold (27%) and silver (4%). Other projects have iron, coal, lithium, phosphates, titanium oxides, limestone, rare earth elements, potassium and zinc as their targets. Only 22% of these projects reported activities during 2018 while 42% were on hold and 36% were classified as abandoned. Out of the active projects, 45% have copper as their main target. The Atacama Region has the largest number of projects, followed by the Coquimbo Region and the Antofagasta Region. The Magallanes Region also stands out with nine projects, although only one is active. In most regions, over half of projects are on hold or abandoned. According to data reported by S&P Global, mining exploration drilling was low in the first half of 2018, but increased in the second half. Drilling in Chile in 2018 focused on copper, which accounted for 52% of drilling holes, followed by gold (26%) and silver (10%). This was in contrast to 2017 when the focus was on gold. The budget for mining exploration in Chile decreased in 2018 to US$576.2 million, down by around US$27 million on 2017. Majors are the most important players in exploration in Chile, accounting for 89% of the total budget. Juniors decreased their budget by 52% in 2018, with their share of the total budget dropping to 5%, while state-owned and other companies and intermediate companies represented 4% and 2% of the budget, respectively.
In general, the decrease in the budget in 2018 was explained by this lower investment by juniors, which preferred to focus on their parent companies’ countries of origin. The contribution of majors held steady due to their brownfield projects.
There were no improvements in the indicators presented as compared to 2017 and some even showed a deterioration, indicating a need to create conditions in which companies can boost their activities, either through the incorporation of new minerals, other than copper, gold and silver, or
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Survey of Exploration Companies in Chile, 2018 II
by establishing new purchasing powers as a means of permitting the entry of new medium and small-scale producers.
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Survey of Exploration Companies in Chile, 2018 III
Contents
Executive Summary ...... I List of figures ...... IV List of tables ...... IV 1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Exploration companies in Chile...... 2 2.1. Origin of exploration companies in Chile ...... 3 2.2. Source of financing of exploration companies in Chile ...... 5 3. Prospects of exploration companies in Chile ...... 7 3.1. Exploration projects by current status ...... 7 3.2. Stage of advance of exploration projects ...... 8 3.3. Principal target minerals ...... 9 3.4. Types of deposit ...... 10 3.5. Regional and geographical location of projects ...... 14 3.6. Comparison with previous years ...... 15 4. Drilling results ...... 20 5. Exploration budgets ...... 21 5.1. Exploration budget in Chile by stage of exploration ...... 22 5.2. Origin of budget financing ...... 23 5.3. Exploration budget in Chile by type of company ...... 24 5.4. Global exploration budget by type of company ...... 25 6. Final comments ...... 26 7. Appendices ...... 29 7.1. Methodology ...... 29 Identification of exploration companies in Chile...... 29 Identification of the prospects and/or projects of the companies surveyed ...... 30 Analysis of survey database ...... 31 7.2. Tables...... 32
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List of figures
Figure 1. Exploration companies with and without active projects, 2017 and 2018 ...... 3 Figure 2. Exploration companies by country of origin...... 3 Figure 3. Exploration companies by type...... 5 Figure 4. Listed companies by the main market on which they trade ...... 6 Figure 5. Projects surveyed by current status ...... 8 Figure 6: Projects surveyed by stage of advance ...... 9 Figure 7: Number of projects by target mineral and current status ...... 10 Figure 8. Number of copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc projects by type of deposit...... 12 Figure 9. Number of active copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc projects by type of deposit...... 13 Figure 10 Number of exploration projects by region and current status...... 15 Figure 11. Number of projects registered by COCHILCO by current status, 2013-2018...... 16 Figure 12. Current status of exploration projects in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018...... 16 Figure 13. Number of projects of companies reporting a budget, by stage of advance ...... 17 Figure 14. Distribution of projects by target mineral, 2014-2018 ...... 18 Figure 15. Drilling in Chile, Q4 2017-Q4 2018...... 20 Figure 16. Number of drill holes by target mineral, 2017 and 2018 ...... 21 Figure 17. Exploration budget in Chile: amount and percentage of world total, 1993-2018 ...... 21 Figure 18. Exploration budget in Chile by stage of exploration ...... 22 Figure 19. Exploration budget in Chile by type of mineral...... 23 Figure 20. Exploration budget in Chile by country of origin ...... 23 Figure 21. Exploration budget in Chile by company, 2018 ...... 24 Figure 22. Exploration budget in Chile by type of company, 2003-2018 ...... 25 Figure 23. Composition of budgets by country and type of company...... 25
List of tables
Table 1. Companies eliminated from and incorporated into the 2018 survey ...... 2 Table 2. Number of exploration companies and their prospects by declaration of budgets ...... 2 Table 3. Exploration companies by country of origin and type of company...... 4 Table 4. Listed companies by source of financing ...... 7 Table 5. Number of projects by type of deposit and current status ...... 11 Table 6. Number of projects by type of deposit for other minerals (total and active projects) ...... 13 Table 7. Type of deposit for total and active copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc projects...... 32 Table 8. Number and percentage of projects surveyed by region and current status ...... 32 Table 9. Exploration projects surveyed between 2013 and 2018 by state of activity...... 33
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1. Introduction
This report contains an update of COCHILCO’s survey of exploration companies for 2017-2018 and provides information about junior and intermediate exploration companies in Chile, based on the public information available as of December 2018, data from S&P Global and mining exploration budgets at the local and international levels. The report includes the following key elements: General information about exploration companies in Chile such as country of origin, sources of financing and type of company; Information about the companies’ exploration projects, the principal minerals sought and targets, their geographical distribution within Chile, the projects’ stage of advance and their current state of activity; Mining exploration drillings in Chile during 2018;
Mining exploration budgets in Chile, source of the funds and their distribution by type of company and exploration. The complete database of the survey is available in Excel on COCHILCO’s website (www.cochilco.cl, Estudios, Exploración, in Spanish). In addition, the geolocation of this data can be found on Minería Abierta Maps (http://maps.mineriaabierta.cl/mapa) along with the typical mining business variables, permitting preliminary evaluation of the extraction of elements from these prospects.
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2. Exploration companies in Chile
This chapter includes the results of analysis of the survey of exploration companies in Chile prepared by COCHILCO since 2012, based on information from the S&P Global database as well as data published by the companies themselves. Compared to the previous version of the survey, 18 companies - all junior, six from Australia, four from Canada and one each from Chile, Mexico, Peru and the UK - were eliminated and 14 new companies - ten from Canada, four from Australia and one each from Chile, the US, Japan and Peru, also all juniors - were incorporated. No cases were found of companies moving into the major category1 (Table 1).
Table 1. Companies eliminated from and incorporated into the 2018 survey as compared to the 2017 version (S&P Global) Incorporated Eliminated - CAP S.A. - Orosur Mining Inc. - Collerina Cobalt Limited - Altius Minerals Corporation - Cougar Metals NL - Apogee Opportunities Inc. - Endeavour Silver Corporation - Atacama Pacific Gold Corporation - Freehill Mining Ltd. - Austral Gold Ltd. - Fresnillo plc - Bearing Lithium Corp. - Hochschild Mining plc - Cerro Grande Mining Corporation - Minsur S.A. - Exeter Resource Corporation - Newcrest Mining Ltd. - Fiore Exploration Ltd. - Rio2 Ltd. - JOGMEC - Southeast Asia Mining Corp - Junefield Holdings - Speciality Metals International Ltd. - TriMetals Mining Inc. - Kairos Capital Corporation - Variscan Mines Ltd. - Li3 Energy Inc. - LiCo Energy Metals Inc. - Lithium Power International Ltd. - Mandalay Resources Corporation - Southern Hemisphere Mining Ltd. - Strike Resources Ltd.
1 According to S&P Global, a major is a company with revenues of at least US$500 million considered to have the financial strength to develop an important mine itself.
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A total of 110 companies were surveyed with 300 prospects at the basic or advanced exploration stage2. Their most important characteristics (such as country of origin and financing situation) are shown below. Based on information from S&P Global, 35 of these companies declared an exploration budget in 2017 and 2018 while 23 did so only in 2018 and 22 only in 2017 (Table 2).
Table 2. Number of exploration companies and their prospects by declaration of budgets for 2017 and 2018 Without With budget With budget With budget budget declared in declared declared declared in 2017 and only in 2018 only in 2017 2017 or 2018 2018 Exploration 23 22 35 85 companies Related 35 67 44 195 prospects Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
In this context, it is important to remember that not all companies own prospects directly. Many of them are owners or partners of other juniors or only have offices in Chile in order to locate mining concessions. There are, in addition, several companies for which information about the associated projects was not obtained. These are recorded as owning several projects without specifying more details.
Out of the 110 exploration companies surveyed, 51 (46% of the total) are active, that is, they have projects with advances in exploration, estimates of resources and studies or have recently acquired initiatives (between October 2017 and December 2018). In the 2017 survey in which 114 exploration companies were identified, 38% reported activities during the period analyzed while, in the 2016 survey, 110 companies were identified of which 43% had active projects (Figure 1).
2 The complete database of exploration companies and their projects can be downloaded in Excel from COCHILCO’s website.
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Figure 1. Exploration companies with and without active projects, 2017 and 2018
2016 2017 2018
38% 114 110 43% 110 companies 46% companies 54% companies 57% 62%
Empresas con proyectos activos Empresas sin proyectos activos
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
Companies with active projects Companies without active projects
2.1. Origin of exploration companies in Chile Among the exploration companies with prospects in Chile that were surveyed for this report, the principal country of origin was Canada, which accounted for 35% of the 110 companies (Figure 2.a). It was followed by Australia (26%), Chile (15%), Japan (6%) and the US (5%). In the case of companies with projects showing exploration activities between October 2017 and December 2018, the distribution by country of origin is similar (Figure 2.b). It is again led by Canada, with 20 companies (39%), followed by Australia with 13 companies (25%), Chile with seven companies (14%), Japan with six companies (12%) and the United Kingdom with two companies (4%).
Figure 2. Exploration companies by country of origin: (a) all companies surveyed; (b) companies with active projects
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Peru UK Others Others Australia 2% 3% 4% Australia 6% UK 25% Japan 26% 6% 4%
US 5% Japan 110 12% 51 companies companies China 4%
Canada 35% Chile Chile Canada 14% 39% 15% a) b)
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
This information can also be broken down by type of company: junior, intermediate, state-owned or other (Table 3). This shows that most of the companies from Canada, Australia, the US, China and the UK are juniors and only a few are intermediate or of another type while companies from other countries such as Japan or South Korea are state-owned.
Table 3. Exploration companies by country of origin and type of company Country Junior Intermediate State- Other Total % owned Canada 32 4 0 3 39 35% Australia 26 2 0 1 29 26% Chile 5 7 1 4 17 15% Japan 0 0 1 6 7 6% US 4 1 0 0 5 5% China 2 0 1 1 4 4% UK 2 1 0 0 3 3% Peru 1 1 0 0 2 2% BVI (2) 1 0 0 0 1 1% South Korea 0 0 1 0 1 1% Panama 1 0 0 0 1 1% South Africa 0 0 0 1 1 1% TOTAL 74 16 4 16 110 Note: (2) BVI = British Virgin Islands
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Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
There are a total of 74 juniors, accounting for 67% of the companies surveyed. There are, in addition, 16 intermediate companies (14%) and four state-owned companies (4%) while the remaining 15% fall into the category of others (Figure 3.a). Considering only those companies with active projects (51 companies), juniors account for 65%, followed by intermediate companies (12%) and state-owned companies (4%), while others account for 19% (Figure 3b).
Figure 3. Exploration companies by type: (a) all companies surveyed; (b) companies with projects active in the last year a) b) Others Others 15% 19%
State- owned State- 4% owned 4% 110 51 companies companies
Intermediate 14% Junior Junior 67% Intermediate 65% 12%
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
2.2. Source of financing of exploration companies in Chile Most of the companies surveyed obtain financing through the stock exchanges of different countries and this is the most common way of raising capital for exploration activities. Analysis of the main markets3 on which these companies are listed provides an indication of the countries in which the capital for exploration activities in Chile is raised. The TMX Group of Toronto in Canada - including the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and the TSX Venture Exchange (TVX) - and the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) are the principal markets on
3 Exploration companies present in Chile are, in general, listed on more than one market in order to diversify projects’ financing risk.
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which they raise capital, accounting for 47% and 31% of the total, respectively (Figure 4.a). This trend is similar to that seen in the companies’ country of origin. In terms of the amount raised, these markets are followed by the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, each of which accounts for 5%. In the case of the United States, the over-the-counter (OTC) market accounts for 3% of the capital raised and, if the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which accounts for 1% is included, this country’s contribution reaches close to 5%. Finally, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) and the Santiago Stock Exchange (BCS) each account for 1%. There are 25 companies that are not listed on any specific market because, for example, they are state-owned or a subsidiary of a listed parent company. Another possibility is that the company is registered as a public limited company (plc) as in the case of some UK-based juniors, which have not yet reached the stage of listing or raising private equity. Many of the companies not using the stock market as a source of financing are Chilean (11 companies) while the remainder are from one of the other countries identified in this report. Considering only those companies with active projects (51 companies), the companies using the stock market are listed principally on one of the exchanges of Canada’s TMX Group (51%), the Australian Stock Exchange (27%) or the Tokyo Stock Exchange (7%). These are followed by the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, the OTC market and the Santiago Stock Exchange in Chile, each of which account for 2% of the total. For further details of sources of financing, see Table 4.
Figure 4. Listed companies by the main market on which they trade: (a) all companies surveyed; (b) companies with projects active in the last year TSX a) TKS b) PIF TKS Not listed 14% 1% 2% Not listed TSX 6% 12% PIF 23% 7% 4% BCS TVX 2% 27% HKEX TVX 1% 27% OTC 110 2% 51 BCS companies 1% companies AIM Nasdaq 4% 1% OTC TSE 3% 6% ASX TVS AIM TSE ASX TVS 23% 2% 4% 3% 24% 1%
Source: COCHILCO based on data from international stock exchanges and exploration companies.
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Table 4. Listed companies by source of financing All Companies with Source of financing Symbol Country companies active projects surveyed Stock exchange TKS/TSX/T 40 23 TMX Group Canada VX/TVS Australian Stock Exchange ASX Australia 26 12 Tokyo Stock Exchange TSE Japan 4 3 Alternative Investment 4 2 AIM UK Market4 Over-the-Counter OTC US 3 1 New York Stock Exchange NYSE US 0 0 National Association of 1 0 Securities Dealers Automated Nasdaq US Quotation Santiago Stock Exchange BCS Chile 1 1 Hong Kong Stock Exchange HKEX China 1 0 Private investment funds PIF Chile 5 3 Not listed 25 6 TOTAL 110 51
Source: COCHILCO based on data from international stock exchanges and exploration companies.
3. Prospects of exploration companies in Chile
For the 110 companies included in the present survey, 300 associated exploration projects were identified. The results of the detailed analysis of these projects are set out below, including current status and stage of advance and geological and geographical characteristics. It should be noted that the number of projects is not the same as the number of exploration targets in Chile since there are some companies for which, although they declare a budget and are present in Chile, details of their investment at the level of projects are not known. This is especially the case of companies whose main business focus is not on mining but which, instead, act as investment partners. In addition, some companies do not declare an exploration budget and do not appear in S&P Global data or publicly disclosed information, implying a lack of information about their exploration targets in Chile.
3.1. Exploration projects by current status In order to understand the real magnitude of exploration activity in Chile, it is necessary to examine the latest activities of each project. To this end, the status of each project was reviewed and
4 AIM is the London Stock Exchange’s market for small companies that want to offer a stake under a more flexible regulatory framework than that of the principal market.
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categorized as active, on hold or abandoned (Appendix 7.1). According to the information collected, only 67 of the 300 projects (22%) show recent exploration activity while 42% are on hold and 108 projects (36%) are abandoned in that no activity has taken place since 2012 (Figure 5).
Figure 5. Projects surveyed by current status
Active On hold 22% 42%
300 projects
Abandoned 36%
Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
3.2. Stage of advance of exploration projects Out of the 300 projects, only 20% have reached an advanced stage while 35% are at the follow-up stage, with studies that include drilling, and 36% are at the generative stage, with preliminary studies using methods such as geological mapping and geochemical and/or geophysical analysis (Figure 6.a). In the case of the 67 active projects, a larger percentage (40%) are at an advanced stage. They are followed by projects at the generative stage (25%) and those at the follow-up stage (20%) while prospects for which information was not available (n/a) account for the remaining 15% (Figure 6.b).
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Figure 6: Projects surveyed by stage of advance: (a) all projects surveyed; (b) projects active in the last year
n/a n/a Advanced Advanced 15% 9% Follow-up 40% 20% Follow-up 20% 35%
300 67 projects projects
Generative Generative a) 36% b) 25%
Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
3.3. Principal target minerals Copper continues to be the main mineral of interest in the exploration projects identified by the present survey. It accounts for 57% of prospects, followed by gold (28%), silver (4%) and iron (3%), while other metals, industrial minerals and coal together account for 9% (Figure 7 and Appendix 1). A similar pattern is seen in the case of active projects, which are led by copper (45%) and gold (29%). Lithium projects account for 8% of the total and phosphate projects for 3%. There are a group of elements - phosphates, limestone, iron and silver - that each account for around 3% of active prospects. They are followed by a group that includes rare earth elements, manganese, molybdenum and potassium, each of which accounts for around 2%. When crossing information about target minerals with projects’ current status (Figure 7), it can be seen that projects which are on hold or abandoned correspond mostly to gold and copper prospects. In the case of copper, only 10% are active and, in the case of gold, 6%.
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Figure 7: Number of projects by target mineral and current status
Cu
Au
Ag
Fe
Li
Carbón
Ti
Zn
K
Caliza
Fosfatos
Mo
Mn
REE
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Desistido Paralizado Activo
Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
3.4. Types of deposit For the purposes of this report, the type or model of deposit was defined based on the information provided by each of the surveyed companies (Appendix 7.1.) Out of the 300 deposits explored - where copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc projects predominate - 30% correspond to porphyry deposits and 18% to IOCG deposits. They are followed by high sulfidation epithermal deposits (9%) and low sulfidation deposits (5%) (Table 5). In addition, stratabound deposits account for 4% of the total, skarn deposits for 2% and placer deposits for less than 1% (only one prospect).
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Table 5. Number of projects by type of deposit and current status
Current status of project % of total % of active Type of deposit Total Abandoned On hold Active projects projects Cu-Au-Ag-Fe-Zn Porphyry 38 39 13 90 30.0% 19% IOCG 18 25 11 54 18.0% 16% HS epithermal 10 9 8 27 9.0% 12% LS epithermal 5 7 4 16 5.3% 6% Stratabound 7 3 2 12 4.0% 3% Skarn 2 2 1 5 1.7% 1% Placer 1 0 0 1 0.3% Indeterminate Veined 4 11 1 16 5.3% 1% Breccia 3 2 0 5 1.7% Disperse 0 4 0 4 1.3% n/a 8 13 4 25 8.3% 6% Others 3 0 1 4 1.3% 1% Other minerals Sedimentary coal 2 2 0 4 1.3% Sedimentary 0 0 2 2 0.7% 3% Limestone Evaporites 0 3 4 7 2.3% 6% Phosphorites 0 0 2 2 0.7% 3% Absorbent clays 0 0 1 1 0.3% 1% Disperse rutile 0 2 0 2 0.7% Tailings 2 0 0 2 0.7% Not identified 5 3 13 21 7.0% 19% Total 108 125 67 300 100% 100%
Source: COCHILCO and exploration companies.
It should be noted that 18% of copper, gold, silver and iron prospects do not have a final classification in terms of type of deposit and are reported as “indeterminate”. In these cases, only the form of the mineralized body is defined.
Out of the 67 projects that were active in 2018, porphyry deposits account for 19% and IOCG deposits for 16%, followed by HS and LS epithermal deposits with 12% and 6%, respectively, and, finally, skarn deposits with 1%.
Relationship of target minerals with type of deposit
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When analyzing the type of deposit for each target mineral (Figure 8 and Appendix 1, Table 7), it can be seen that most copper prospects (156 in total) are associated with porphyry deposits (43%) or IOCG deposits (26%). Veined mineralized bodies account for 8% and stratabound deposits for 6% while 8% are classified as indeterminate.
Similarly, for gold projects (72 projects), it can be seen that HS epithermal deposits account for 32%, followed by porphyry deposits (28%) and LS epithermal deposits (18%).
In the case of silver (11 projects), most of the targets correspond to LS or HS epithermal deposits, each of which accounts for 27% of the total, followed by porphyry and veined deposits with 9% each.
The main types of deposit in the case of iron (9 projects) are IOCG (78%) and stratabound (11%).
Finally, two zinc prospects associated with porphyry deposits were reported.
The same analysis applied only to projects that were active in 2018 (Figure 9 and Appendix 1, Table 7) reveals that most copper projects (23 in total) are associated with porphyry deposits (48%) or IOCG deposits (13%) or, to a lesser extent, stratabound and skarn deposits.
In the case of gold (17 projects), the main types of deposit explored in 2018 are HS epithermal deposits (29%), LS epithermal deposits (24%) and porphyry and IOCG deposits with 13% each.
In the case of the two active silver projects, one corresponds to an HS epithermal deposit while all the seven iron projects correspond to IOCG deposits.
Figure 8: Number of projects by type of deposit for all projects surveyed with copper, gold, silver, iron or zinc as their target mineral
80 Type of deposit 70 60
50 Indeterminate 40 30 20 10 0
Cu Au Ag Fe Zn s/i
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Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
Figure 9: Number of projects by type of deposit for active projects with copper, gold, silver or iron as their target mineral
12 Type of deposit 10 Indeterminate 8
6
4
2
0
Cu Au Ag Fe Zn s/i
Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
Deposits of other metals, industrial minerals and coal represent only 6% of the projects (Table 6). They are led by evaporite deposits rich in lithium (2%), followed by phosphorite deposits (from which phosphates are extracted), sedimentary coal deposits and titanium oxide and limestone deposits, each accounting for 1%. Finally, real earth elements and manganese deposits each account for less than 1%. In the case of active projects, the percentage of deposits associated with other minerals is higher, reaching 12% of the total of 67 projects. Evaporite deposits have a higher presence (6%), followed by sedimentary limestone deposits (3%), while active prospects associated with rare earth elements and manganese each account for 1%.
Table 6. Number of projects by type of deposit for other minerals (total and active projects) Other minerals Type of deposit Total projects Active projects Coal Sedimentary coal 4 0 Lithium Evaporites 7 4 Titanium oxide Disperse rutile and others 2 0
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Phosphates Phosphorites 0 0 Limestone Sedimentary limestone 2 2 Real earth elements Absorbent clays 1 1 Manganese Others 1 1 Source: COCHILCO based on information from exploration companies.
3.5. Regional and geographical location of projects According to the regional information collected (Figure 10 and Appendix 1, Table 8), 246 of exploration companies’ 300 projects (82%) are located in northern Chile between the Arica y Parinacota Region and the Coquimbo Region. In the Atacama Region, there are 107 projects (36%). It is followed by the Coquimbo Region with 64 prospects (21%) and the Antofagasta Region, the heart of the country’s mining industry, with 58 projects (19%). Similarly, most active projects (52) are located in the north, led by the Atacama Region with 23 active projects, followed by the Antofagasta Region (15) and the Coquimbo Region (11). In the central-southern Chile, 31 exploration projects were identified, located in the Valparaíso Region (10), Santiago Region (6), Maule Region (6), O’Higgins Region (4), Biobío Region (1), Araucanía Region (1), Los Ríos Region (1) and Los Lagos Region (1). In the case of active projects, two are located in the Santiago Region and one in each of the Valparaíso, O’Higgins, Maule and Biobío Regions. The far south Chile has the fewest exploration projects (23), comprising nine in the Magallanes Region, of which one is active, and four in Aysén Region, of which one is also active.
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Figure 10: Number of exploration projects by region and current status
Arica y parinacota Tarapacá North Antofagasta 82.0% Atacama Coquimbo Valparaíso Metropolitana O'Higgins Maule Center- South Biobío 103%. Araucanía Los Ríos Los Lagos Aysén Magallanes Far south 7.7% s/i
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Desisitidos Paralizados Activos
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
3.6. Comparison with previous years A review of the status of projects in the surveys for the past five years (Figures 11 and 12; Appendix 1, Table 9) shows that, in 2013, there were 254 exploration projects in Chile of which 72% were active, 21% were on hold and 6% were abandoned. In 2014, the number of projects decreased to 237, with 77% active, 22% on hold and 1% abandoned. This was followed by an increase in 2015 to 259 projects of which 31% were active, 52% on hold and 17% abandoned. A further increase in 2016 took the number of projects to 266 of which, however, only 23% were active while 48% were on hold and 29% abandoned. In 2017, there were 294 projects of which 22% were active, 53% on hold and 26% abandoned while, in the latest survey for 2018, there were 300 projects, with 22% active, 36% abandoned and 42% on hold.
In broad terms, the results show that, in 2013 and 2014, the number of new projects exceeded those put on hold or abandoned. This situation, however, changed in 2015 when a majority of projects were on hold. This trend persisted through to 2017 with a predominance of projects on
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hold, followed by abandoned projects and, in third place, active projects. In 2018, the number of active projects increased slightly but the increase in abandoned projects was larger.
Figure 11. Number of projects registered by COCHILCO by current status, 2013-2018
184 183
155 134 127 125 108
80 78 76 67 61 63 54 52 45
16 2
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Activos Paralizados Desistidos
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
Figure 12. Current status of exploration projects in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018
2015 2016 2017 2018
17% 23% 21% 31% 29% 26% 22% 36%
42% 52% 48% 53%
Activo Paralizado Desistido
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
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Considering only the projects of those companies that reported a budget in the respective year and the project’s stage of advance (Figure 13), it can be seen that, broadly speaking, the tendency of companies over time has been to maintain an important portfolio of prospects at the follow-up stage, a smaller group of projects at the generative stage and an even smaller number at an advanced exploration stage. However, the distribution varies from year to year since market conditions affect the number of projects at the generative and follow-up stages but have less impact on initiatives at an advanced stage whose number tends to hold relatively constant. This is explained by the high expectations usually attached to projects that have reached an advanced exploration stage, implying that, although they may not currently be active, companies opt to retain these properties and projects.
The number of initiatives at the generative stage increased from 24 in 2012 to 78 in 2014 but, in 2015-2016, dropped back to 41 prospects. Projects at the follow-up stage held steady at around 100 prospects, except for 2013 when there was a marked increase to 133 projects, followed by a drop in 2015 and 2016 to 51 prospects. The number of advanced exploration projects has remained relatively constant over the past six years, ranging from 53 in 2014 to a minimum of 17 in 2018.
Between 2014 and 2018, there was an important drop in projects at the generative stage (from 78 to 17) and at the follow-up stage (from 106 to 13) while the decrease in projects at an advanced stage was less marked (from 53 to 27).
Figure 13. Number of projects of companies reporting a budget for the respective year, by stage of advance 133
106 101
78 71 59 53 53 49 51 50 41 40 35 35 31 30 27 17 20 13
Generativa Seguimiento Avanzada
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
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The distribution of projects by target mineral has remained fairly constant during the past five years (Figure 14), with a strong predominance of copper projects (between 58% and 67% of projects), followed by gold projects, which showed a slight decrease from 35% in 2012 to a minimum of 28% in 2018. Copper and gold projects were followed by silver projects in third place in 2018.
Figure 14. Distribution of projects by target mineral, 2014-2018
Hierro Otros Hierro Litio Otros 5% Plata 2,3% 1,2% 4,6% 7% 5,4% Plata 3%
Oro Cobre Oro Cobre 27% 58% 27,4% 59,1%
2014 2015 Carbón Hierro Titanio Zinc Otros 1% 2% Otros 5% 4% 1% 3%
Oro 29% Plata 3% Oro 27%
Cobre Cobre 67% 58% 2016 2017
Litio Carbón Titanio Otros 2% 1% 1% 4% Hierro 3% Plata 4%
Cobre Oro 57% 28%
2018
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Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
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4. Drilling results
According to the data compiled by S&P Global, drilling activity showed a marked increase in the third quarter of 2018 when over 150 holes were drilled but, in the last quarter, the figure dropped to no more than 50 drill holes (Figure 15). The third-quarter increase is not reflected in the number of significant results reported.
Although these results provide a referential value for exploration in Chile, they include only those companies that periodically publish their results and do not necessarily cover all the holes drilled in the country or their results.
Figure 15. Drilling in Chile, Q4 2017-Q4 2018
Source: S&P Global.
When analyzing the target mineral of drillings in 2017 and 2018, a change of trend becomes apparent in that gold moves to second place, accounting for 26% of drill holes, after copper (52%). The other target minerals are silver (10%), zinc (7%), lead (4%) and phosphates (1%).
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Figure 16. Number of drill holes by target mineral, 2017 and 2018
2017 Plomo 2018 Zinc Molibdeno 4% Zinc Fosfato 5,1% 0,2% 7% 1% Cobre 10,3% Plata Plata 10% 29,0% 534 drill 426 drill holes holes Plomo Oro 1,5% 53,4% Hierro Oro Cobre 0,6% 26% 52%
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global.
5. Exploration budgets
This chapter analyzes the total exploration budget for Chile, including major companies as well as juniors and intermediate, state-owned and other types of companies (Rotmann, 2017). In 2018, the exploration budget in Chile dropped to US$576.2 million, down by around US$27 million on 2017. This positioned Chile in sixth place internationally, accounting for 6.0% of the global exploration budget (Figure 17).
Figure 17: Exploration budget in Chile: amount and percentage of world total, 1993-2018
1200 9,0% 6.0% 8,0% 1000 7,0% 800 6,0%
576.2 5,0% 600 4,0%
400 3,0% (Millones USS) (Millones de 2,0% 200 1,0%
0 0,0%
1995 2003 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Presupuesto (MMUS$) Participación en presupuesto mundial (%)
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Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
5.1. Exploration budget in Chile by stage of exploration The distribution of the exploration budget between the basic, late stage and minesite exploration stages (S&P Global, 2018) accentuated a trend already apparent in 2017, with the advanced stage being more important than the other two stages (Figure 18). The budget for basic or grassroots exploration increased by 41% while those for minesite and late stage exploration were down by 15% and 24%, respectively.
Figure 18: Exploration budget in Chile by stage of exploration: (a) historical figures in US$ million and (b) distribution in 2017
450 Grassroots Minesite 400 31% 27% 350 239.4 300 250 200 150 100 178.2 50 158.6 0
Late stage
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 a) 1999 b) 42% Básica Avanzada Mina
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
Analysis of the focus of exploration budgets in Chile reveals that the search for basic metals continues to predominate, accounting for 67% of the total budget in 2018 (Figure 19). This group is led by copper, with 67% of the budget, while the remainder goes to zinc. The second most important metal is gold, with 31%, followed by other resources such as silver, molybdenum, rutile and lithium. It should be noted that, in 2018, there was an increase in the budgets for all the minerals reviewed, with the exception of copper.
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Figure 19: Exploration budget in Chile by type of mineral
90% 66.8% 80% 70% 60% 50% 31.4% 40% 30% 20% 10% 1.7% 0% 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017
Oro Metales base Otros
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
5.2. Origin of budget financing Considering the total mining exploration budget in Chile in 2018 (for major, junior, intermediate, state-owned and other companies), the most important source of financing was the United Kingdom, which accounted for 31% of the total budget and was also the source which showed the largest increase on the previous year (144%). It was followed by Canada, which accounted for 28% of the total budget, and Chile which, with 9%, also showed the most important drop (-74%) (Figure 20).
Figure 20: Exploration budget in Chile by country of origin: (a) historical and (b) 2017
100% Others 90% South 5% Africa Australia 80% 13% 7% 70% 60% 50% United Canadá 40% Kingdom 28% 31% 30% 20% Chile 9% 10% Japan US 0% 4% 3%
a) b)
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 1999 Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
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The company with the largest exploration budget in 2018 was Chile’s AMSA, which accounted for 18% of the total. It was followed by Gold Fields (13%), Anglo American (9%), state-owned Codelco (6%) and Barrick and Yamana Gold (each with 5%) (Figure 21).
Figure 21: Exploration budget in Chile by company, 2018
Others Antofagasta plc 26% 18% Gold Fields Limited Rio Tinto 13% 4% BHP 4% Goldcorp Inc. 4% Anglo American plc 9% Barrick Gold Corporation Lundin Mining Corporación Nacional 5% Corporation del Cobre de Chile Yamana 6% 6% Gold Inc. 5%
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
5.3. Exploration budget in Chile by type of company In Chile, majors or, in other words, large-scale mining companies accounted for 88.8% of the exploration budget in 2018 (Figure 29). In terms of amount, their budget was up by 9% on the previous year. Juniors, on the other hand, accounted for 4.5% of the total in 2018, with their budget decreasing by 49%, while state-owned and other companies and intermediate companies represented 4.4% and 2.3% of the budget, respectively (Figure 22).
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Figure 22: Exploration budget in Chile by type of company, 2003-2018
100,0% 88.8% 90,0% 80,0% 70,0% 60,0% 50,0%
40,0% 4.4% 30,0% 2.3% 20,0% 10,0% 0,0% 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Major* Junior Mediana Estatal y Otros
* Includes Codelco. Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global (2018).
5.4. Global exploration budget by type of company Figure 23 shows the seven countries with the largest investments in exploration in 2018.
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0 Major Intermediate Junior Goverment Other Canadá Australia USA Peru Mexico Chile China Figure 23. Composition of budgets by country and type of company Analysis of the budgets corresponding to these countries shows the importance of major companies whose brownfield projects are, in most cases, the key part of the budgets’ composition, along with the contribution of intermediate companies. In the case of juniors - which, in Canada and Australia,
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account for 54% and 47% of the total budget, respectively, but, in Chile, only 4% - the analysis shows that they have explained the budget fluctuations seen in recent years.
The global budget increased by 21% in 2018 while, in Chile, it was down by 5% (Figure 23). This can be explained by mining and exploration companies’ aversion to risk and the retreat of juniors to their country of origin, rather than taking on the risk of exploration overseas.
6. Final comments
Since 2012, COCHILCO has conducted an annual survey of small and medium-scale exploration companies (excluding majors), identifying their projects in Chile. From the information presented in this report, the following conclusions can be drawn:
Exploration companies in Chile: origin and financing In Chile, 110 small and medium-scale companies are currently undertaking explorations. Out of these, 74 are juniors, 16 are intermediate companies, four are local or overseas state-owned companies and 16 are of some other type. They come principally from Canada, Australia and Chile. These companies raise capital principally on the stock markets of different countries. Out of the 110 companies surveyed, 85 obtained financing by placing shares on the stock market. The stock exchanges where most of these companies are listed are Toronto (TMX Group) and Australia (Australian Stock Exchange, ASX) in line with their country of origin. In recent years, a number of private investment funds have entered the Chilean exploration market. Several of them were created with the support of the government’s Fondo Fénix. Out of the 110 companies that carry out exploration in Chile, only 51 reported activity in 2018. Status of projects and exploration targets For the 110 companies surveyed, 300 exploration projects were identified. Out of these, 57% had copper as their target mineral, followed by gold (27%), silver (4%) and iron (3%). Other less frequent targets included coal, lithium, phosphates, titanium oxides, limestone, rare earth elements, manganese, potassium and zinc. Only 22% of the 300 projects reported progress on their projects in the form of new estimates of resources and reserves, advances on feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, presentation of a Declaration of Environmental Impact (DIA) or an Environmental Impact Study (EIA) or exploration activities such as mapping, sampling and drilling. Out of the remaining projects, 42% were on hold - that is, the company retains ownership but there was no progress on the project in 2018 - and 36% were classified as abandoned. Out of active projects in 2018, copper accounted for 45%, followed by gold with 29%.
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Silver, iron, coal, lithium, phosphates and titanium oxides accounted for smaller percentages of projects. Projects by region Most mining exploration projects are located in the Atacama Region (107 projects), followed by the Coquimbo Region (64) and the Antofagasta Region (58). The Magallanes Region stands out for its nine exploration projects but only one of these reported activity in 2018. In all regions, over half of projects are on hold or abandoned. The situation is most critical in the Tarapacá and Valparaíso Regions where only 10% are active. Comparison with results for 2017 At 110, the number of exploration companies in 2018 showed little change on 2017 (114 companies). In 2017, 38% conducted exploration activities in Chile while, in 2018, the figure increased to 46%. In 2017, 294 exploration projects were identified and, in 2018, this increased to 300. However, the percentage of these projects that are active has decreased from 77% in 2014 to 31% in 2015, 23% in 2016 and a low of 21% in 2017 before increasing slightly to 22% in 2018. In previous years, companies generally tended to maintain a broad portfolio of projects at the follow-up stage, fewer projects at the generative stage and a small but more stable number of projects at an advanced stage. In 2018, however, the percentage of projects at the follow-up stage dropped from 35% in 2017 to 23% and those at the generative stage from 41% to 30% while those at an advanced stage increased from 24% to 47%.
The distribution of projects by target mineral has held relatively steady, with a marked predominance of copper (53% in 2017 and 57% in 2018), followed by gold (25% in 2017 and 28% in 2018). In 2017, iron took third place (4%) with silver in fourth place (3%) but, in 2018, their positions were reversed, with silver in third place (4%) followed by iron (3%). Other minerals representing smaller percentages included lithium, coal, limestone, manganese, titanium oxides and rare earth elements. Out of the active projects, 45% had copper as their target mineral, followed by gold (29%) and lithium (8%). Drilling results According to data reported by S&P Global, drilling activity was low in the first half of 2018 but increased in the second half. In 2018, drilling in Chile focused on copper as the target mineral. It accounted for 52% of drill holes, followed by gold (26%) and silver (10%). This was in contrast to 2017 when the focus was on gold projects.
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Exploration budget In 2018, the mining exploration budget in Chile dropped by some US$27 million to US$576.2 million. Analysis of the budget by type of exploration shows that, in 2018, late stage and minesite exploration were down on 2017 while grassroots exploration consolidated its upward trend. The percentage of the budget corresponding to copper increased to 67%. It was followed by gold (31%), which showed little change on the previous year. In 2018, the United Kingdom was the main source of budget financing, accounting for 31% of the total. It was followed by Canada (28%) and Chile (9%). Chile was the country that showed the most marked drop compared to 2017. Majors or, in other words, large-scale mining companies are the key players in mining exploration in Chile and, in 2018, accounted for 89% of the total budget. Juniors, on the other hand, saw their budget decrease by 52%, with their share of the total budget dropping to 5%, as they took refuge in their home country while waiting for market conditions to improve. State-owned and other companies and intermediate companies represented 4% and 2% of the budget, respectively. In the case of the top seven countries in mining exploration - Canada, Australia, the US, Peru, Mexico, Chile and China - junior companies are very important and explain Chile’s drop to sixth place in the global ranking of exploration investment in 2018, down from fifth place in 2017.
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7. Appendices
7.1. Methodology For this report, information was compiled about junior, state-owned and intermediate companies that carry out exploration work in Chile. The methodology is designed to identify and characterize the exploration companies present in Chile and their projects, using information updated to 2018.
Identification of exploration companies in Chile Work on identifying exploration companies operating in Chile began in 2012, using data about exploration budgets obtained from the annual report “Corporate Exploration Strategies”5 published by the then Metals Economics Group, now S&P Global. The information baseline is, therefore, the 2011 exploration budget. In addition, the information publicly available in the specialized press, press releases or announcements on stock exchanges during the year is reviewed to identify exploration companies not included in the register of S&P Global. Companies operating in Chile are identified through the following activities: 1. Review of the exploration budget for Chile published in the S&P Global database and by the companies involved during the current year; this is also compared with the budget for previous years. 2. Identification of companies other than majors, according to the following classification: Junior: Companies that do not have mining operations and are essentially “venture capital companies” devoted exclusively to exploring mining resources which they subsequently sell in order to obtain a return for their investors. In some cases, these companies also take a project through to the exploitation stage, becoming a medium-scale mining company. Intermediate: Generally small companies that have decided to start production at properties they have discovered or whose economic feasibility they have proved. State-owned: Companies totally controlled by the government of their country which operate principally in accordance with the state’s interest in obtaining resources, rather than as private companies6. Others: Includes all the companies that are not large-scale companies or do not fit into one of the above definitions. They are normally the result of a joint venture between large-scale companies,
5 This annual publication contains non-ferrous mining exploration budgets at the global level for the current year. 6 Codelco, which is state-owned, is not included in the survey because of its size and because the way it operates is more similar to that of a private major.
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state-owned companies or juniors and declare an exploration budget independently of their owners. Identification of aspects such as the company’s country of origin, whether it presented an exploration budget for the last year for which information is being collected, the stock markets on which it is listed (name and country of the exchange) and its website.
Identification of the prospects and/or projects of the companies surveyed After identifying the companies with their basic information, the online information available about them is reviewed, including their websites and those of the world’s main stock exchanges. In this way, it is possible to identify their principal exploration projects/prospects. These are then collated in a database including aspects such as: Name of prospect(s) Principal mineral and secondary minerals Resources and/or reserves, if identified Types of deposit which, for the purposes of this report, are divided into two groups: a. Deposits of copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc: porphyry; deposits of iron oxide, copper and gold (IOCG); high sulfidation (HS) epithermal and low sulfidation (LS) epithermal, stratabound, skarn and placer deposits; “indeterminate” deposits (veined, breccia, disperse and others or not defined). b. Deposits of other minerals such as coal, lithium and industrial minerals: sedimentary coal, sedimentary limestone, evaporites, phosphorites and absorbent clays or not defined. Current state of the project: a. Active: A prospect that is 100% owned by the company or on which it has an options contract (OC)7 and exploration activity took place between October 2017 and October 2018. b. On hold: A prospect on which the company has an OC but this was rejected between October 2017 and October 2018 and the prospect, therefore, forms part of the 2018 exploration budget.
7 Options contract (OC): Forward contract between a mining company which owns a prospect (“option giver”) and an exploration company (“option taker”), establishing a series of payments from the option taker to the option giver for a specific percentage of the property, up to 100%, in exchange for which the option taker carries out exploration work on the prospect.
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c. Abandoned8: A prospect on which exploration activity has ceased without a change of ownership. These prospects are identified using companies’ websites and press releases. If there had been no news of a project since 2014, it was considered abandoned. Stage of advance: a. Generative: In this stage, the focus is on defining the area(s) of interest (region) and identifying drilling targets. This is the first phase of the basic exploration process. b. Follow-up: Through the identification of targets in the generative stage, it is possible to find important mineralization and, therefore, the ore body, identifying the main minerals it contains and the type of deposit. This is the last phase of the basic exploration process. c. Advanced: In this stage, the information obtained through the basic exploration process (generative and follow-up stages) is used to delineate the resource and define the deposit with economic value. This is the stage in which preliminary studies are carried out such as scoping studies and the prefeasibility studies. Brief description of the project’s location and the corresponding region and province. Location according to Chile’s geomorphological zones from west to east as follows: Coastal Plain (CP), Coastal Mountains (CM), Central Depression (CD) and the Andes Mountains (AM) for all the country and the Magellan Plain (MP) in the far south. Identification of the metallogenic belt for copper, molybdenum, gold, silver, iron, lead and zinc projects, if close to deposits belonging to one of these belts. This is carried out using the geographic location and the geological information available for the area. The five metallogenic belts of greatest economic importance in the country are analyzed: Jurassic Belt, Early Cretaceous Belt, Paleocene-Early Eocene Belt, Late Eocene-Early Oligocene Belt, Miocene Belt, and Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Belt (see Appendix 2).
Analysis of survey database The collection and updating of information, as described above, permits its systematization and subsequent analysis through the generation of diagrams and charts in order to identify and understand the current state of exploration activity in Chile.
By obtaining statistics about exploration companies, the study seeks to characterize them, identifying their country of origin, the type of company and their sources of financing. Similarly, it seeks to compile statistics about the status of projects, their stage of advance, target minerals and the related types of deposit, the projects’ geographical distribution within Chile and their relationship with metallogenic belts. In addition, these statistics are compared with the data obtained by COCHILCO in previous versions of the study.
8 This usually occurs for one of two reasons: a) it is a brownfield project on which exploration is temporally halted; or b) the company needs to give priority to another property during a period of tight financing.
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The analysis is performed in parallel for two groups of companies: a) all the companies and projects surveyed; and b) only those companies with active projects in the period studied.
7.2. Tables
Table 7. Type of deposit for total and active copper, gold, silver, iron and zinc projects
Type of Cu Au Ag Fe Zn n/a Total deposit
Total Active Total Active Total Active Total Active Total Active Total Active Total Active
Porphyry 67 11 18 2 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 89 13
IOCG 41 7 6 2 0 0 7 2 0 0 0 0 54 11
HS 2 1 21 5 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 26 7 epithermal
LS 0 0 13 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16 4 epithermal
Stratabound 10 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 12 2
Skarn 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 1
Placer 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Breccia 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0
Disperse 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0
Veined 12 1 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 16 1
n/a 13 0 5 4 3 1 0 0 0 0 6 0 27 5
Others 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Total 156 23 72 17 11 2 9 2 2 0 7 0 257 44
Source: COCHILCO based on data from exploration companies.
Table 8. Number of projects surveyed by region and current status; percentage of projects by region % of total % of active Projects by region Active On hold Abandoned Total projects projects Arica y Parinacota 2 3 2 7 2% 3% Tarapacá 1 8 1 10 3% 1% Antofagasta 15 22 21 58 19% 22% Atacama 23 48 36 107 36% 34% Coquimbo 11 29 24 64 21% 16%
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Valparaíso 1 4 5 10 3% 1% Santiago 2 1 3 6 2% 3% O'Higgins 1 2 1 4 1% 1% Maule 1 1 4 6 2% 1% Biobío 1 0 1 2 1% 1% Araucanía 0 0 1 1 0% 0% Los Ríos 0 0 1 1 0% 0% Los Lagos 0 0 1 1 0% 0% Aysén 1 2 1 4 1% 1% Magallanes 1 2 6 9 3% 1% n/a 7 3 0 10 3% 10% Total 67 125 108 300 100% 100%
Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
Table 9. Exploration projects surveyed between 2013 and 2018 by state of activity
Status 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Active 184 183 80 61 63 67 On hold 54 52 134 127 155 125 Abandoned 16 2 45 78 76 108 Total 254 237 259 266 294 300 Source: COCHILCO based on data from S&P Global and exploration companies.
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This report was prepared in the
Research and Public Policy Department by
Christian Sanhueza Véliz
Mining Market Analyst
Cristian Cifuentes González
Strategy and Public Policy Analyst
Jorge Cantallopts Araya
Director of Research and Public Policy
December 2018
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