ENAMI (Chile)

Empresa Nacional de Minería
Company typePublic company
IndustryMining
Founded1960 (1960)
FounderGovernment of Chile
Headquarters
Santiago
,
Chile
OwnerChilean state
Number of employees
1275[1] (2016)

Empresa Nacional de Minería (National Mining Enterprise) better known by its acronym ENAMI is a Chilean state-owned mining company based in Santiago. Its business involve purchasing ore, primarily from small and medium-scale mining,[2] processing it is and selling the processed product, usually copper, in the international market.[2] ENAMI has also its role in providing technical and financial assistance for mining in its target segment.[2] Its board president is the Chilean minister of mining, who since August 2023 is Aurora Williams.[3][4] ENAMI was created in 1960 by the merger of Caja de Crédito y Fomento Minero (CACREMI) and Empresa Nacional de Fundiciones.[5] The company is aimed to help small-scale miners by among other things buying ore in quantities that are otherwise too small to be traded in the international market.[5] The company also helps stabilizing prices for the products of medium and small-scale miners.[5] It has most of its offices and smelters and other industries in the northern half och Chile, from Rancagua to the Arica in the far north.[6] South of Rancagua the only office of ENAMI lies in Concepción.[6]

Artisan miners known as pirquineros usually sell their output directly to ENAMI.[7] The number of small-scale miners in charge of a mining operation (each typically having a workforce of five to six miners), including pirquineros, registered at ENAMI has been in the span 2300 to 750 in the 2011–2021 period.[5] Thus, by one estimate in the 2000s to the 2020s in years of high mining activity up to 14,000 miners would have been employed in small-scale mining in Chile.[5] As of 2019 the number of small-scale miners working on copper mining was about twenty times larger than those working on other metals like gold or silver.[5]

ENAMI is considered a key component to fight illegal mining in Chile as it deprives organized crime from taking the role of being the main buyers of the products of small-scale miners as it happens in other Latin American countries.[8]

Assets

ENAMI owns 10% of the copper mine Carmen de Andacollo in which Teck Resources owns the remaining 90% of the shares.[9]

The custom copper smelter Fundición Paipote next to Copiapó is owned ENAMI. It has been paralyzed since February 2024 for a major overhaul.[10][11] At the time of paralyzation the smelter generated economic losses for ENAMI.[10]

Former assets

In 2024 ENAMI sold its 10% shares in Quebrada Blanca to state-owned Codelco.[12][13][14] Prior to this sale Quebrada Blanca was ENAMI's main asset, and the sale was aimed to provide financial capital for the company and pay-off some of ENAMI's debts.[14] The terms of the purchase were criticized by Sociedad Nacional de Minería as lacking transparency.[14] Other critics also point out that shares were sold at prices below what private companies would have paid and that the sale is part of a pattern of empoverishment of ENAMI at the cost of benefitting Codelco.[14]

In late 1977 ENAMI sold Los Bronces mine, then known as Disputada, to Exxon for 93 million US$.[15] Exxon later sold the mine to Anglo American plc for 1300 million US$.[15]

ENAMI owned the copper smelter Fundición Ventanas in Valparaíso Region from its establishment in 1964 to 2005 when it was sold to Codelco.[16] This smelter closed in 2023 due to environmental issues.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ Dipres. "Información OECD 2010 -2016" (PDF). Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Ulloa Urrutia et al. 2017, p. 50.
  3. ^ "Organigrama". enami.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 March 2025.
  4. ^ Ningthoujam, Natalia (17 August 2023). "Chile's President Reorganizes Cabinet For 3rd Time Amid Low Approval Rating". Latin Times. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Scholvin, Sören; Atienza, Miguel. "La formalización de la pequeña minería en Chile: logros y desafíos de la Empresa Nacional de Minería (ENAMI)". Investigaciones Geográficas (in Spanish). 66: 1–13.
  6. ^ a b "Dónde estamos". enami.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 20 March 2025.
  7. ^ Porteous, J. Douglas (1978). "Urban Symbiosis: A Study of Company Town Camp Followers in the Atacama Desert". North-South Canadian Journal of Latin American Studies. 3 (5–6): 210–221. Once a truckload of ore is gathered, it is delivered to the government smelter at Paipote, or to middlemen. ln the Chuquicamata area, ore has been sold to the Empresa Nacional de Minera (ENAMI), a government agency.
  8. ^ Viera, Dominique (19 March 2025). "Por qué necesitamos a ENAMI y su actual gobierno corporativo". Portal Minero (in Spanish). Retrieved 21 March 2025.
  9. ^ "Carmen de Andacollo". Consejo Minero (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  10. ^ a b "ENAMI cierra 2024 con utilidades y proyecta un 2025 con resultados positivos". Minería y Futuro (in Spanish). 6 February 2025. Retrieved 17 March 2025.
  11. ^ Ibarra, Valeria (13 February 2024). "Fin de una era: Fundición Paipote de Enami produjo los últimos ánodos de cobre de sus 72 años de vida". Diario Financiero (in Spanish).
  12. ^ "Codelco compra 10% de Quebrada Blanca". Codelco (in Spanish). 5 September 2024.
  13. ^ "Quebrada Blanca". Consejo Minero (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  14. ^ a b c d Ibarra, Valeria (5 September 2024). "Enami vende su activo más valioso en US$ 520 millones a Codelco para pagar deudas: 10% de Quebrada Blanca". Diario Financiero (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 May 2025.
  15. ^ a b Ramos, Marcela; Figueroa, Juan Pablo (2 December 2011). "Las desconocidas operaciones de Anglo que bloquean el acceso de Codelco a la propiedad de Los Bronces". Ciper (in Spanish). Retrieved 10 June 2025.
  16. ^ a b "La fundición Ventanas apaga sus hornos tras 58 años de historia". codelco.com (in Spanish). Codelco. 31 May 2023. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  17. ^ Toro, Daniela; Munita, Ignacia (25 June 2022). "Cierre de fundición Ventanas: El intrincado debate por dónde instalar una nueva planta y los costos asociados". Emol (in Spanish). Retrieved 26 June 2022.

Bibliography

  • Ulloa Urrutia, Alfie; Contreras Biekert, José Luis; Gana Aravena, Joaquín; Miranda Toledo, Rodrigo; Chauveau Gerber, Paul; Villalobos Valenzuela, Fernando; Farías Soto, Javiera (2017). Productividad en la Gran Minería del Cobre (in Spanish). Comisión Nacional de Productividad. ISBN 978-956-7725-08-3.
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