https://www.engineeringnews.co.za

Brazil mining reforms stalled by impasse over new agency

29th July 2018

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

BRASILIA – A new Brazilian mining regulator created last year to cut red tape and attract foreign investment has still not gotten out of the blocks, with experts warning that the agency will be stalled at least through the October election and perhaps until 2019.

Miners say major investments are hanging in the balance.

The National Mining Agency (ANM) — approved by Congress in November — cannot begin its activities until the Senate confirms five directors appointed by President Michel Temer. A separate initiative to modernise the country's mining code will only go into effect once the agency launches.

With less than three months to go before general elections, "it isn't feasible" that the directors will be confirmed before a new government is elected, said Israel Lacerda de Araujo, Senate mining expert who advised lawmakers on the regulations.

Flexa Ribeiro, a senator who sits on the infrastructure committee overseeing the confirmations, said Temer's nominations "showed a lack of respect" because they did not include any directors from Brazil's most important mining states of Minas Gerais and Para.

It will take longer for the directors to be confirmed as a result and it's still possible new names could be put forward, said Ribeiro, a member of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) from Para.

The names were chosen purely based on their technical experience in the mining industry, according to two government officials. The officials said the whole process takes time and is at the discretion of the Senate.

Ana Cabral-Gardner, co-chairman of Sigma Lithium Resources Corp, which mines lithium in Brazil, said enactment of the reforms will be key to clearing up legal uncertainty in Brazil and bringing laws in line with international standards.

The government says that cutting red tape in the sector could boost the mining industry's share of gross domestic product (GDP) to 6 percent from 4% currently by speeding up a system in which it can take more than a decade to get a permit.

The reforms include allowing mining concessions to be put up as financial guarantees and would release 20 000 concessions tied up in bureaucratic limbo.

Brazil is the second-largest exporter of iron ore after Australia and home to large deposits of copper, bauxite and other minerals, including potentially major recent finds by miners such as Anglo American.

"On the whole, the changes are positive ... but all of this depends on the effective installation of the Mining Agency, which until now has not happened," said a representative of Nexa Resources SA, a Brazilian miner that went public last year, in an email to Reuters.

The agency's creation was approved by Congress along with a hike in mining royalties, in part to fund its operations.

The taxes have already gone into effect and helped boost the budget of the current mining regulator, which ANM would replace, to 2.6-billion reais from 1.7-billion reais last year, said Victor Bicca, the director of the current agency DNPM, who is also nominated to lead the new agency.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

Showroom

Werner South Africa Pumps & Equipment (PTY) LTD
Werner South Africa Pumps & Equipment (PTY) LTD

For over 30 years, Werner South Africa Pumps & Equipment (PTY) LTD has been designing, manufacturing, supplying and maintaining specialist...

VISIT SHOWROOM 
Schauenburg SmartMine IoT
Schauenburg SmartMine IoT

SmartMine IoT has been developed with the mining industry in mind, to provides our customers with powerful business intelligence and data modelling...

VISIT SHOWROOM 

Latest Multimedia

sponsored by

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION







sq:0.113 0.165s - 156pq - 2rq
Subscribe Now