Nice post from klf30s: Ecuador/PDACSince CONMIN was mentioned in the post on the T.DMM board, I've added some definition around its purpose and membership, using an excerpt from Ecuador Mining News (somewhat dated, from Sept 2009). In klf's 5th highlight, the intent may have been end of
month or quarter (same thing, 3/31) in lieu of end of
year.
https://www.ecuadorminingnews.com/news.php?id=123
Kinross Vice President in Ecuador Dominic Channer, who was re-appointed after the Kinross-Aurelian merger, granted Ecuador Mining News an exclusive interview during which he discussed the Canadian firm’s expectations regarding the creation of the National Mining Enterprise (NME), the new mining law and the company’s leadership in the Responsible Mining Council (
CONMIN, for its Spanish acronym).
CONMIN was created as a strategy to overcome the setback that the mining sector suffered as a consequence of the April 2008 mining mandate, which halted the operations of all large-scale mining firms. The council’s main goal is to promote the benefits of a responsible mining industry, and dialogue with the government using one united voice. CONMIN has nine members: Kinross, IAMGOLD, Corriente Resources, and International Minerals are the
four most active members, and Cornerstone Resources, Dynasty Metals, Ecometals Ltd., Salazar Resources, and Atlas Minerals are the junior partners.
https://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetail.aspx?p=0&m=29388792&l=0&r=0&s=DMM&t=LIST
Ecuador Presentation @ PDAC highlights
Hi Guys ,
So I attended the presentation (free attendance) and it was amazing how informative and useful it was., and how easy it is to get information instead of just speculations. ?
Presenters : Government of Ecuador (VP of minning), Ecuador Canada chamber of Commerce , Conmin (a group of 4 canadian companies, Kinross, IAMGOLD, and two others I forgot), Slazzaar resources.
What's new : For the first time an official Ecuador government presentation @ PDAC.
General Highlights
- Contracts started Negotiations.
- Negations are done by project not by company, each project has different terms.
- The terms depend on the project scale, and cost of production, etc.
- 51% mostly for government, but the trick is, does this include all the
money the company pay for infrastructure or not ?, does this include the taxes paid for labor, social insurance, etc.. lots on the table, but the negotiations are optimistic because of the sincerity of the government of wanting to kick off the mining.
- The government believes that FDN and maybe another company will be signed end of April, but the reality from the companies is that they are planning before end of year !.
- The government acknowledges that things have not been easy and asks for 3P's, Persistent, Patient and Polite :).
- The government knows there is doubts and thinks that the doubts will be put to rest when first contracts are signed.
- Oil companies were a special case with 'service contracts' because for the large part they were seen as collaborators with the corrupt oil regime and the view they bankrubed the country while getting rich.
- Mining companies do not fall in the same stature by all means and are seen as partners with the government.
- The
Taxes/Royalities are almost settled, the idea is all in the fine print of the royality between 5-7 % depending on the project, the less cost of production, the higher the royality again, the idea of government keeping 51% of total benefit, the discussion in defining 'benefits', companies argue, they already put a lot of money in labor and infra structure and all net profits after royality is out of this equation, but government may argue that 51% apply to net profit, so, the discussion is there.
- great optimism about the new Minister and the negotiation team leaders as they were both mining people and worked in private sector before , totally aware of how the company operates, the largest obstacle was before they had politicians who understood little about mining
business.
DMM highlights :
- company was all over the Canadian Chamber of commerce as one of the top 5 projects and was highlighted in a couple of articles in news papaers .
- in Official government presentations, they have stars in yellow colors for all different projects in the country (around 15 of them), DMM was the only 'blue' star, when asked why, they said because it is the only one producing already.
- Conmin representatives said that DMM was a special case as they managed to actually navigate their way ' this is why they believe the name was not in the top star projects.
- The government of Ecuador refered to DMM as in 'small production' , but mentioned the project in the top 10 projects in the country.
- I presented a question of why DMM is not expedited if it is already in production unlike the others, the answer was "we have rules and simple application that everybody must comply with, we do not prefer any company over another and we will work with anyone who present the formal
papers'.
- I cold not locate the DMM represntative in the room after, but when I asked the host (Ecuadorian lady) to identify him, she seemed to know his face and name, and said 'neither he or Robert Washer are here) so they are very highly visible.
The room had maybe 40-50 people, there were headsets for the spanish presentations to be translated, it was very informative.
I hope you find this helpful, I will leave my own impressions for later talk, these are just the facts from the presentations.
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