Mining and major projects · Northern Chile · Antofagasta
Is the land available, or does it only look that way?
In Antofagasta, 51.2% of the surface is already under granted mining concessions. What the map shows as free, the register shows as committed.
Specialists in territory, assets and regulation. We assess whether your project's location will remain viable against mining titles, easements, infrastructure, regulation and the growth of the operation, before you commit the investment.
Over time
Viable today. Reached by the pit in year seven.
What we do
Four stages of an asset's life cycle, and the decision each one enables
Stage 1
Know
Decide on a single, verifiable inventory of what is actually on the ground.
Stage 2
Fit
Choose between siting alternatives knowing which present and future constraints each one faces.
Stage 3
Enable
Know which titles, easements and permits the project needs, and in what order.
Stage 4
Close
Plan closure and its commitments from the start of operations, not when the deadline arrives.
From problem to recommendation · four steps
- We define the decision with you. What has to be decided, over what horizon and with what scope.
- We integrate the territory. Titles, easements, infrastructure, regulation and hazards in a single reading.
- We project it through time. The operation's growth, third-party projects and foreseeable regulatory change.
- We recommend. A report with territorial and strategic information, and a recommendation that can be defended before the board.
Case studies
Problems we know how to solve
Situations addressed by the firm's technical director in large-scale copper mining.
Technically viable sites that the territory did not allow
RiskCommitting investment to a site that the operation's growth or territorial constraints would reach before the end of its useful life.
What it enabledAlternatives are no longer compared only by construction cost, but by how many years each one remains viable.
What it preventedRedesigning and relocating a facility with engineering already well advanced.
Situation and intervention
SituationEngineering teams identified sites for growth projects by assessing constructability, without incorporating the territorial complexity involved.
InterventionTerritorial analysis of the alternatives: current constraints, titles, easements, committed infrastructure, pit and waste-dump advance, and hazard areas, projected across the asset horizon.
Managing a complex portfolio of mining titles and associated rights
RiskLosing a title through a missed maintenance payment or expiry, or finding an overlap when it is already on the critical path.
What it enabledThe portfolio is managed as an estate, with expiry dates in view and the risk of forfeiture under control.
What it preventedForfeitures through oversight, and overlap conflicts detected too late.
Situation and intervention
SituationExploitation concessions, water rights and easements managed in separate registers, with no consolidated view of validity, maintenance status or overlaps.
InterventionRegister and structuring of the portfolio with traceable validity and obligations, bringing the legal, finance, geology, environment and IT areas together around the territorial asset.
Our own tool
The whole region on a single map
- 04Infrastructure and energyroads · power lines · pipelines
- 03Titles and rightsconcessions · easements · public land
- 02Water and environmentwatercourses · aquifers · protected areas
- 01Relief and place namescontours · spot heights · names
Our internal working tool: more than one hundred integrated layers, each with its source and its date, to answer by place, with a calendar of expiry dates.
Who is accountable
Specialisation, not volume
Track record
The firm brings together more than fourteen years of practice in territory, assets and regulation, with direct experience in territorial asset management and closure planning in large-scale copper mining.
Engagements that require complementary specialities are delivered with professionals trained to the same standard. One person accountable for the result.
Working languages: Spanish, Portuguese and technical English.
By role
The question you probably have on your desk
- Projects and EngineeringWill this site still be viable in ten years?
- Mine planningHow much land does the new plan commit, and which facilities are in the way?
- Land and Land ManagementWhich concessions expire this year, and who is watching?
- Mine closureDoes the closure plan match the operation we have today?
- Environment and permitsDoes this project change require entry into the environmental assessment system (SEIA)?
- Continuity and emergenciesIf the only access road is cut tomorrow, how many days can the operation keep running?
- Assets and investmentDoes the asset's territory support the plan that justifies its price?
What we solve
Four costly problems, and what it costs not to see them in time
The four problems · situation, what you receive and what it prevents
Why more information is not enough
None of them is solved with more information. They are solved with the right information, cross-checked and projected through time, before the decision is made.
A facility must be sited and no one knows what is committed on that land for the next fifteen years.
What it preventsRedesigning and relocating a facility once engineering is frozen and the permit is under review.
What you receive
The alternatives compared by how many years each one holds, with the source of every constraint.
The portfolio of concessions, easements and water rights is spread across departments, spreadsheets and separate registers.
What it preventsLosing a title through a missed maintenance payment, or finding an easement problem when it is already on the critical path.
What you receive
A single portfolio with validity, obligations and expiry dates, and an alert before each deadline.
The closure plan was prepared for an operation that no longer exists as it is today.
What it preventsFindings during inspection, and a liability that keeps growing while operations continue.
What you receive
An updated plan before Sernageomin, with measures matched to current facilities and every change traceable.
The site is right today, but the operation's own growth, third-party projects and climate change the picture.
What it preventsAccepting a decision that expires before the asset does.
What you receive
Those layers projected across the mine-plan horizon, and the recommendation that follows.
How we engage
Three ways of working together
Why three modes
Organisations do not all need the same thing. Some know exactly what has to be done and lack someone to do it; others need judgement they do not hold in-house; others simply need the speciality to be available when the question arises.
Mode A
Capacity for a defined assignment
You know what has to be done and have no one to assign it to.
What it involves
A bounded deliverable with fixed scope and deadline: updating and cleaning a mining property register, preparing a filing for Sernageomin, establishing and regularising easements, building an operational geospatial database, producing the cartography for a study.
BasisPer deliverable or professional hours
WhenWhen the work is clear and the hands are missing.
Mode B
Speciality the internal team does not hold
The work requires judgement that does not exist inside the organisation.
What it involves
Mine planning and mine design with a territorial perspective; progressive, temporary or full closure under Law 20,551 and Supreme Decree 41; projection of territorial interference across the asset horizon; territorial compatibility analysis for siting decisions; and reconciliation of the closure plan with the mine plan.
BasisPer project, with progress milestones
WhenWhen the team is good at its own work, and this is not it.
Mode C
Ongoing support
Steady availability for queries, reviews and second opinions.
What it involves
A monthly block of hours to review decisions before they are signed, resolve mining property and territorial questions, review third-party reports and accompany filings in progress. The organisation keeps control; the speciality is available when needed.
BasisMonthly block of hours, renewable
WhenWhen questions are frequent and none justifies a project.
If you prefer to start with a closed assignment · TIA
Territorial Initial Assessment
Understand the territorial position of your assets and anticipate the constraints that will affect them.
The problem
Technically viable is not the same as available
Why now · investment, energy and land already committed
Mining is investing again. Cochilco's 2025-2034 portfolio totals US$104,549 million, the highest in more than a decade, and US$40,734 million of it is located in the Antofagasta Region. Every pit or waste-dump expansion, and every new plant, camp, power line or tailings facility, needs land, and looks for it in a territory already constrained by concessions, easements, regulation, hazards and other projects. The challenge is not finding available land, but knowing which land will remain compatible for the whole life of the project, and protecting tomorrow's growth options today. The analysis (in Spanish) →
Energy adds to that demand: Chile has 236 active onerous-use concessions for renewable energy on public land, about half of them in this region, and the Ministry of National Assets will tender more than 21,000 additional hectares in the northern macro-zone during 2026. Each project that is built reduces the options for the next one, and those decisions last for decades. The analysis (in Spanish) →
Mining investment portfolio 2025-2034: Cochilco, December 2025 (a portfolio is not committed investment). Onerous-use concessions and public-land tender: Chilean Ministry of National Assets, 2026.
Why a viable site stops being viable
A concentrator, a solar plant, a camp, a tailings facility, a substation, a logistics corridor: each needs a location, and engineering teams are good at finding technically viable ones.
The question rarely answered is a different one: will that location still be available in five, ten or twenty years? The territory is already committed to things that cannot yet be seen: pit advance, waste-dump growth, an easement someone will file, a hazard area that will widen under the next climate scenario.
Our own work
More than half of the Antofagasta Region sits under granted mining concessions.
This is not an estimate. 27,869 active concessions cover 6,453,801 hectares, 51.2% of the regional surface. The shape of the region is drawn by its own cadastre.
Land the map shows as available already has its subsurface committed in more than half of cases. And this is a single layer, the simplest of them all.
Approach
Titles, easements, infrastructure, regulation and hazards in a single reading, projected through time
01
Assets
Concessions, titles, easements, water rights and infrastructure: a portfolio with expiry dates and obligations, not a folder of documents.
02
Territory
What already happens in that space: land uses, constraints, communities, natural hazards and third-party projects.
03
Regulation
The framework that defines what can be done, when and at what cost. Anticipated rather than endured.
04
Time
The dimension almost no one analyses. Constraints are not a state: they are a calendar.
Anyone can overlay layers. Almost no one projects them through time.
Analysed separately, the four produce correct reports and poor decisions. It is the interaction between them that determines whether a project holds.
Analysis
What we publish
Our analyses are published in Spanish.
Investment · 2025-2034 portfolio