On September 14, 2023, the “Regulation that regulates the procedure for the conclusion of commercial agreements of the national mining company ENAMI EP, for mineral processing plants” (hereinafter the “Regulation“) was published in Official Gazette No. 396. The following are the main elements of this regulation:

1. Scope. – The Regulation regulates the procedure for concluding trade agreements between ENAMI EP and natural or legal persons, public or private, national or foreign; associations formed or to be formed; for the exploitation of mining resources in the benefit, smelting, and refining phases in processing of mineralized material from the concessions owned by ENAMI EP; as well as operation contracts, seized material or artisanal operations, in order to make viable the commercial and operational capacity of ENAMI EP.

2. Process selection. – ENAMI EP may carry out selection processes for the conclusion of commercial agreements of this type, on its own initiative or on private initiative. Those interested in participating may include in their proposal, what is related to logistics services for mineral transport; own accredited laboratories or under agreement with third parties that can perform sampling and analysis of minerals, logistical factors (location, transport, access), equipment, processing capacity, laboratory testing, chemical analysis, camp, physical security, flexibility for different mineral recovery processes.

In the bases of the procedure, the conditions of the processing plants or processing of mineralized material must be established, they must have metallurgical processes or areas, according to the type of mineralized material.

3. Requirements for selection. – The interested party must present and comply with at least the following requirements:

a. Current authorization for the installation and operation of processing plant granted by the sectoral Ministry and registered in the Mining Registry.

b. Prior administrative acts established in Article 26 of the Mining Law.

c. Compliance with environmental, tax, and legal obligations.

d. Certificate of validity of mining rights.

e. Mineral processing expertise.  

f. Legal documentation related to the constitution of the legal person, association or consortium.

g. Designation of the person authorized to receive official documentation.

h. Technical report, applied methodology, diagrams for mineral processing.

i. Economic offer containing the detail of the value of the services offered.

j. In the event that the interested party has complementary logistical services (transport, storage and others) and its own or accredited external laboratory for mineral analysis, it must be included in the proposal.

4. Selection procedure. – The General Manager of ENAMI EP, will designate the commission in charge of elaborating the bases of the procedure.

Once the start of the selection procedure has been arranged, ENAMI EP will make an open call through the institutional website.  

The bids will be presented to the technical commission, which must make a review of compliance with the base requirements of the offer and then move on to the substantive evaluation.

The Technical Commission shall ensure that, in the selection process, the person offering the greatest economic and strategic benefits to ENAMI EP is chosen.

The General Manager of ENAMI EP, based on the recommendations presented by the Technical Commission, will issue the award resolution, indicating the maximum time for the signing of the Commercial Agreement; same that may not exceed 60 days term.

For more information, do not hesitate to contact us.

This newsletter contains a summary of legal developments of interest, and therefore cannot be considered as advice provided. Any concerns, contact the AVL Abogados team.