For years, Brazil was ignored as a beneficial mining jurisdiction inside South America. However what’s lately turn into obvious is that occasions are altering. The nations that had been as soon as deemed as go-to choices are actually experiencing civil unrest and political instability. Whereas these nations not appeal to the funding {dollars} they as soon as did, Brazil is rising as a mining vacation spot of alternative. That is additional supported by robust client desire, and in some instances authorities mandates, to supply low-carbon inputs for functions starting from electrical automobiles to regional energy infrastructure. Second solely to Norway in its share of energy generated by renewable sources, Brazil is ready to produce a number of the cleanest battery metals on the planet.
From a geological perspective, Brazil has huge and largely untapped mineral wealth. The nation has traditionally been the world’s largest producer of iron ore and a big producer of gold. Brazil is now additionally gaining recognition for its potential as a serious provider of the metals desperately wanted for the greening of the worldwide financial system, resembling copper, nickel and lithium.
Brazil lately elected Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, higher often called Lula, because the nation’s thirty ninth president, placing the nation’s political dynamic instantly within the international highlight. Whereas left-leaning Lula — who was additionally president between 2003 and 2010 — holds very completely different views from his right-leaning predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, he has returned to energy with guarantees of attracting overseas funding, decreasing rising poverty charges and advancing Brazil’s environmental agenda.
Regardless of adjustments in ruling events through the years, there was a constant understanding of Brazil’s potential to be a frontrunner in producing metals essential to help international decarbonization targets, and to provide these metals on the lowest emissions ranges on the planet. Blessed by its authorities’s foresights within the Sixties and Seventies to develop renewable power sources as the best way ahead to powering its financial system, Brazil immediately produces over 85% of its electrical energy from these sources together with hydro, photo voltaic and wind technology, a exceptional statistic by any measure and particularly so given it’s the seventh most populous nation on the planet.
Recognizing that it has the distinctive alternative to be a worldwide chief within the manufacturing of battery metals, Brazil has additionally taken important steps to enhance the mining regulatory framework, probably the most substantive adjustments the nation has seen over the previous 60 years. In 2018, Brazil launched the Nationwide Mining Company (ANM), to assist enhance the mining sector’s efficiency throughout the nation.
Ero Copper’s Boa Esperanca venture in Brazil. Credit score: Ero Copper
The development of the mining business achieves two equally important objectives for Brazil. First, from a worldwide standpoint, Brazil acknowledges the function mining performs in enabling the transition to sustainable power sources, for which way more steel is required to generate and transmit clear energy. To that finish, Brazil lately established its Strategic Minerals Coverage in March 2021. The coverage goals to prioritize the development of mining initiatives deemed strategic to the nation and to international decarbonization efforts. Between the Strategic Minerals Coverage and the NMA, mining firms have a longtime framework and licence to function within the nation.
Nearer to house and the second principal purpose why Brazil is curious about sustaining and rising mining exercise is the function the business performs for its rising middle-class inhabitants. As South America’s largest nation with one of many quickest rising populations on the planet, Brazil has a urgent want to extend the usual of dwelling for almost all of its residents. And one of many quickest methods to do this is thru mining, each from a wealth creation standpoint and as a method of accelerating employment. Brazil’s mining business generated estimated revenues of $89 billion in 2021 and instantly employs over 200,000 individuals — together with many in some lower-income states the place mines are situated.
Regardless of all of Brazil’s developments round mining, enterprise and inexperienced power, the world’s view of Brazil continues to be related to antiquated stereotypes that aren’t reflective of what the nation is immediately and the place it’s headed. Neither is it reflective of Ero Copper’s expertise, both.
Whereas my firm, Ero Copper, has been energetic in Brazil for under six years, our Caraíba Operations have been working because the late Seventies and type a part of the material of Bahia State. We’re proud to function in Brazil and excited to see all of the help from its authorities and folks towards our business. We’ve got witnessed first-hand the progress the nation has made in constructing a sustainable, wholesome, environment friendly and clear mining business. Brazil is our house and we plan on staying for some time. Final month, we introduced an extension of mine life for our Caraíba Operations in Bahia to twenty years, and earlier this 12 months, we started building of a brand new copper mine, Tucumã, situated within the Carajás area of Para state. Throughout our portfolio, we’ve and proceed to take a position closely in exploration as we acknowledge the potential of Brazil’s untapped and underappreciated mineral wealth, significantly in terms of battery metals.
As we stay up for the subsequent 4 years underneath President Lula’s management, we see a Brazil poised to take its place as a serious producer of the metals wanted to assist battle local weather change, and to provide these metals with the bottom carbon footprint on the planet. All inside an up to date regulatory framework that enhances the safety of the atmosphere and its residents.
—David Strang is Chief Govt Officer of Ero Copper Corp.
