Taken from El Mercurio

Today, Pampa Camarones will become the first mining company to register on the Santiago Stock Exchange through the Scalex system, a mechanism that seeks to facilitate access to financing for smaller companies.

The general manager of the company, Robert Mayne-Nicholls, explains that the objective of the firm is to raise US$ 7 million to finance the expansion of the company, based in the Arica Region, where they currently have their operations, with capacity for 8,400 tons of copper cathodes per year.

This operation has a useful life until 2030, with 4 million tons of reserves, but with studies that show that there is more mineral in the area.

"Faced with this, we need to carry out a significant exploration campaign in these sectors that geologists have theoretically defined that there should be resources to confirm them and be able to extend the project, in the first stage until 2035," details Mayne-Nicholls.

Financing

Faced with this situation, the mining company owned by Minería Activa requested an analysis from Larraín-Vial Corredor de Bolsa, which concluded that the most advantageous option to obtain the resources was through registration on the Santiago Stock Exchange, thus also generating an opportunity investment for those interested in the development of mining in Chile.

"With this, a market is opened and this could also promote interesting development for other companies. We believe that the values ​​that we obtain are very similar to those that we would obtain with other instruments, but it also allows the development of a new business opportunity for many mining companies, which have a hard time getting financing," explains the executive.

In turn, the funds required by the mining company will be used to consolidate property and develop explorations in a second project located in the Antofagasta Region.

"This is a polymetallic project, which will allow us to produce copper and other pastes, which is tremendously interesting because in general there has not been a development of polymetallic projects in Chile," says the executive, who adds that this potential work It will require an investment of between US$100 million and US$150 million.

Mayne-Nicholls -with experience in companies such as Enami, AMSA or Twin Metal- arrived at Pampa Camarones in May 2022 and since that date, he explains, they have managed to reduce production costs by 15%, which had significant problems in copper recovery processes. For this reason, the sale process promoted by Minería Activa in 2021 was not completed.

Today the cost of production is US$2.85, but they are working on initiatives that seek to optimize some processes and bring the indicator to a range of between US$2.30 and US$2.50 per pound of metal.

Previous Openings

The opening of Pampa Camarones will only be the second operation of this type on the Santiago Stock Exchange so far this year, adding to ZeroQ's, while in 2022 there was only Osoji's.

The particularity is that these last three operations have all been through ScaleX, a platform that includes mechanisms, regulation and processes tailored to the potential players in this market.

The previous movements on the Santiago Stock Exchange date back to 2019, with Inmobiliaria Manquehue and Cencosud Shopping. Meanwhile, in 2018 the processes of Salmones Camanchaca and Plaza were carried out, according to information provided by the Stock Exchange.