Brazil & Southern Cone - August 2014 (ISSN 1741-4431)

New Codelco CEO: On 31 July, the directorate of the state-owned copper mining company Codelco appointed Nelson Pizarro Contador as its new executive president. Pizarro, who most recently held the post of executive president of the Minera Lumina Copper Chile company, a subsidiary of Japan’s Pan Pacific Copper, replaces Thomas Keller, who was appointed in 2012 by Bachelet’s predecessor Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014). Keller, who was asked to step down on 5 June, had admitted to reporters that his vision was not in line with the rest of the directorate, particularly regarding “investments that were not going to prove profitable for the Chilean public”. Pizarro’s appointment follows that of economist Oscar Landerretche, who President Bachelet named to head up the Codelco board of directors in May 2014 [RBS-14-05]. Appearing before the congressional mining committee on 23 July, Landerretche said that Codelco would seek to issue annual debt of around US$1.7bn to help it finance an ambitious investment plan for 2014-2018. Codelco estimates it needs to invest an average US$4.5bn annually over the next 5 years to upgrade its aging deposits and counteract falling ore grades. Landerretche said the board had agreed that a further US$2bn would come from its own resources, amortization and depreciation, while Codelco would request the remaining US$800m from the government as part of its capitalization, adding that the figures were average and could fluctuate.

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