With the aim of speeding up the approval of mining rights applications, particularly in the case of critical minerals, the National Mining Agency (ANM) intends to make the procedures for approving Exploration Reports, Economic Development Plans, and Assignment of Mining Rights more flexible. In parallel, the regulatory body for mining activity in Brazil has undertaken to resume, in the first half of 2024, auctions of available areas, which will lead to greater activity in research and mining alike. Mauro Souza, director-general of the ANM, gives these promises, mentioning that, despite the structural difficulties — insufficient personnel and a shortage of funding — the Agency is developing projects aimed at automating these processes, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI). In 2024, he says, "we already have the prospect of launching a first project on the assignment of mining rights, because we have now accumulated a very large backlog of applications that we have been unable to handle with the personnel and resources available to us. We need something that is both more agile and more user-friendly. We want to develop platforms where the user receives a much quicker answer. And we will take care to differentiate between critical or strategic minerals on the one hand and the bulk of our operations on the other. That way we can align with the needs, not of Brazil alone, but of the world market. We can be a player that the world can interact with, to make those minerals available. The list may include minerals needed for building and for infrastructure, which have an important place in government programs such as the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) and Minha Casa Minha Vida (for social housing).
The Agency also intends, as soon as possible, to retain outside consultants to evaluate Research Reports, a move that will help to speed up the handling of applications. It is not acceptable, Souza says, that when a company files a Final Exploration Report that may have taken it three or four years to produce, ANM is not required to meet any deadline for examining the report and giving its approval. That creates insecurity for the entrepreneur. At the same time, no ANM official, no matter how experienced he may be, can be expected to evaluate every Exploration Report in just two or three days. And even if he did, "would his analysis be as thoroughgoing as the work the company itself had done in the first place?" That is the reason, he says, why entrusting the task to a qualified outside consultant will speed up the process.
"The same argument holds, and even more forcefully, in the case of an Economic Use Plan," Souza says, because the business risk is that much greater. "We have to honour the entrepreneur's ability to seek out the best practices and design the best business plan for his venture, recruiting the best professionals for the job." Either the company is drawing on its own financial resources or it has to seek outside financing for its venture, which means a debenture issue or a bank loan. The feasibility of his venture is dependent on the outcome of a screening process.
"So I don't think it's our job, the Agency's job," Souza says, "to certify that this is the best Economic Use Plan that the company could make. Our job is to check that the plan is in accordance with the rules that have been laid down and then to monitor compliance, to make sure the company acts in accordance with its duly approved plan, while bearing in mind that the nuances of implementing its plan will require changes and that we cannot tell the company to join a queue, to submit a new plan and to go through the evaluation procedure all over again."
Souza says the ANM has already been authorized to accredit companies and professionals, entitling them to evaluate companies' plans. This will be done by the end of 2024. "With this mechanism in place," he says, "we can reserve higher-ranking activities for ANM personnel, such as introducing new practices and new procedures to improve the business environment, enabling us to provide more business-friendly conditions for the development of the Brazilian mining industry."
Souza expects to make a formal announcement about the next availability auctions on the occasion of the PDAC 2024 convention in Toronto. "Today we have around 75,000 areas available and we have programmed offers, with different models". Problems occurred, he says, with the SOPLE system that operates the auctions, but they have now been solved and are not only working but have been improved. "We plan to announce one auction in the first half of 2024 and another in the second half, with five thousand areas on offer each time. Our expectation is that we will enter a higher level of security, with a more appropriate procedure. This retention of areas is not good for the state nor for the market," he says, adding that among the available areas there are many that have already been duly researched and have generated a great deal of interest. "This is the answer we need to give," he concludes.
We are talking about a reevaluation of thousands of mineral occurrences and even some deposits," Gonçalves points out, "because until very recently almost no one was interested in exploring rare earths.