Perhaps the most important aspect of today’s agreements is the fact that both aim to form long-term strategic partnerships to collaborate on further ventures, opening new markets for all the firms involved.
Chile, the world’s biggest copper producing country, has warned that the global resources sector needs to pay far more attention to its environmental and social licence obligations if new projects worth billions of dollars are to get up.
The Chilean government has removed BHP Billiton's US$4 billion Spence copper expansion project from its 10-year development timeline, saying it expects the world's largest miner will miss its targeted deadline of first production by 2020.
The main objective of the legislation is to ensure that profits from those so-called “blood metals” — tungsten, tin, tantalum and gold — do not go to African warlords.