Reuters reported that Codelco aims to reach a deal to solve a dispute with global miner Anglo American Plc before the companies' negotiation window closes on July 17th 2012.

Mr Gerardo Jofre chairman of Codelco said while asking by Reuters whether the mining companies were inclined to extend a self imposed deadline for the talks for a second time that "No. We're trying to do it within the given time frame."

The mining firms appear poised to clinch a deal to solve their multibillion dollar, three continental dispute over Anglo's south central Chilean copper assets. They announced on May 22th 2012 they had asked for a suspension of their legal fight.

Mr John MacKenzie Anglo's head of copper said that the companies have maintained a strict silence around the confidential talks but the alternative floated most commonly in the industry involves state owned Codelco buying 24.5% of the assets and receiving some sort of compensation.

He, Mr Jofre and other mining executives were attending a ceremony at the presidential palace to launch the first blasting operations to transform Codelco's century old Chuquicamata copper mine into an underground operation. The dispute between Codelco and Anglo centers on an option agreement dating to 1978.

Codelco said in October it would exercise the option to buy 49% stake in Anglo American Sur when the option window opened in January. But weeks later, Anglo surprised everyone with the pre emptive sale of 24.5% stake in AAS to Mitsubishi Corporation in USD 5.4 billion deal that dented Codelco's ambitions but which it said secured better value for investors.

Since then, the companies have been tussling for the properties, which include Los Bronces, a promising mine that used to be called La Disputada the disputed one in Spanish. A slice of the prized properties would be a major boost for Codelco, which faces stubbornly dwindling ore grades in its tired deposits as it seeks to boost its annual output to 2.1 million tonnes by 2020.

Source - Reuters

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