Los Azules closed with its parent company, McEwen Mining, an investment of 70 million dollars. This injection of funds will allow them to carry out the studies with which they will present their feasibility, which they believe will be ready before March 2025. This, together with the Environmental Impact Report, are the two steps that any project must complete before starting construction. . In this way, the copper deposit is getting closer to its objectives, which is to start construction of the mine in 2026, to produce from 2029.
The company confirmed in a statement that McEwen Mining had acquired the shares of the project. This was a sign of confidence in the company’s San Juan project, said Michael Meding, general manager of Los Azules, as Rob McEwen, founder of the Canadian company, also joined the purchase. The local leader also said that it had to do with “the potential that the project has for a long-term investment.” Part of the progress also had to do with the treatment of the RIGI in Congress, explained the businessman, as the half-sanction and approval with changes in the Senate was a positive signal to investors. The fact is that at the end of May, before these steps were taken, they were still looking for investors.
The 70 million dollars will be used for the studies necessary to obtain the Economic Feasibility Report of the project. This step is key, since it is done with quality standards from the United States and Canada and is a series of documents where the company demonstrates that its project is a good investment. For this, for example, they will use the results of the last exploration, which was a record for the company and the province, with more than 65,000 meters surveyed. They will also add the details of how the construction, engineering and obtaining of the mineral will be. Now that they have the funds, they assured that they will be able to have everything ready before April 2025.
Once they have the report, they will be ready to look for investors for the construction of the mine, which has a cost of 2.5 billion dollars. For this, the businessman assured, it is still key that the RIGI is approved, to unlock new funds. So far, several investors have joined in what are the steps prior to construction. The company Rio Tinto joined to provide technology and the automotive company Stellantis secured part of the production for its plants.
They also have another key step pending, which is to obtain the Environmental Impact Statement. This is in process, after they presented the report in April 2023. Regarding this, Meding assured that they have had “positive exchanges and feedback” from the evaluation committee, made up of 14 scientific and government institutions. In addition to analyzing the more than 4,000 pages of technical studies, the specialists traveled to the project during April. Even so, the environmental approval process does not have a scheduled closing date.
The company currently maintains the estimated schedule for the start of construction of Los Azules. If they close the feasibility in the first quarter of next year and obtain the declaration close to that date, they will go out to look for investors with the idea of starting work in 2026. Starting the mine, located in Calingasta, will take at least three years and they believe that in 2029 they could begin to extract copper.
