Ecuador working on strategic plan for mining sector

Ecuador is working on a strategic plan to boost the mining sector.

As part of that plan, which runs until 2035, the government seeks to introduce a series of reforms to secondary regulation and to open the mining cadastre, deputy mines minster Diego Ocampo told BNamericas.

With US$3mn in financing from the IDB, the country will contract specialized software for the comprehensive management of the mining sector, which includes a technical, digitalized cadastre with real-time monitoring capacity and audits.

The cadastre has been closed since 2018 and the current authorities plan to open it initially in a sectorized manner.

“We can't make the same mistakes of the past. We have to be smart and strategic. We must open the registry in regions in which mining is not prey to Manichean and ideologically biased discourses of extremist, radical groups,” said Ocampo.

The objective is not to open the registry in ancestral, sensitive or conflictive areas, but to do so in regions without major social conflict, and even in areas where there is illegal mining as a way to combat it.

Initially, the cadastre could be opened in the provinces of Zamora Chinchipe, Morona Santiago, El Oro, Esmeraldas and Imbabura, or in some of them, but a final decision on the areas has not yet been made.

The initial opening of the cadastre is scheduled for this year.

The mines department is also working on instructions that ensure the use of the best technical and environmental standards for the transportation of minerals, and for the use of traceability mechanisms that guarantee that the mineral that leaves the mines corresponds to what is shipped for export.

“These issues are important but we haven’t addressed them because we don’t have the operational capacity to carry out adequate controls,” said Ocampo.

Ecuador is in the process of splitting the agency for the regulation and control of energy and non-renewable resources (ARCERNNR) into three entities: the agency for mining regulation and control (Arcom), the agency for regulation and control of electricity (Arconel), and the hydrocarbons regulation and control agency (ARCH), which should be concluded this month.

Ocampo said it is necessary to strengthen and modernize Arcom, to have sufficient personnel, use the highest standards and take advantage of the tools available by using artificial intelligence, among other technologies, for the benefit of mining and the country.

The official said that next year the instructions for the transportation and traceability of minerals should be available, as well as a properly equipped agency.

Ocampo added that the country must also think about the logistics and infrastructure that will be required by several mining projects that should start operating in the next decade.