Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Before coming to Santiago, I had thought of Chile as a place of copper mines. Today I learnt that gold was and is a major mined product of Chile. Today I lunched with two young geologists exploring the hillsides above an old placer deposit which, they tell me, financed the founding of Santiago and ultimately the country itself.
A quick perusal of Google searches for “placer gold mining chile” tells the story in more detail than a mere blog need do. Read the details; they are fascinating. But if you do not, just believe me that placer mining of gold in Chile has a long and profitable history. And while placer mining of gold in Chile will probably never again exceed production of gold as a by-product of copper mining, there is still life in those old placer deposits.
Thus we find placer miners from Alaska in Chile, and me eating and drinking with them in Santiago today. How lucky they are to be young, energetic, ambitious, with the world open to them in ways that we will never even comprehend.
I am not sure how one goes about investing in placer gold mining projects in Chile. I shall have to look into that when I get back to Vancouver. Maybe you can beat me to the punch. But I am told the investors are flying down to inspect the property next week.
After lunch we walked through the park that lines the river and talked the afternoon away. Their powerful and curious intellects will take them far, of that there is no doubt. It will be to places and things they do not conceive of now, but they will make the world different and better whatever they choose to do: be it to write the definitive modern mining rock opera or solve the problems of the geomorphic future of mine waste facilities. I wish them luck.
