Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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R E S O U R C E N AT I O N A L I S M industry subsidiaries including shipbuilding, construction and services. By slowing this investment, officials effectively spawned a mining sector meltdown while nationalizing iron ore and bauxite processing facilities. Unsurprisingly, Caracas has endeavored to avoid compensating foreign investors. Indeed, the gold repatriation, while not mining-related, underscored a Chavez decree three months on to withdraw from the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)—representing 140 member nations—where it faced 20 multi-billion-dollar claims. In a Foreign Ministry statement, the move allows Venezuelans "to decide the strategic orientation of the social and economic life of the nation." Bolivia and Ecuador had pulled out years before. Some powerful companies have been seeking redress there, including oil giants like ExxonMobil and (Colombia and Venezuela - from p. 61) Across the lawless border near Cerrejon, however, things have swung in the opposite direction. From the beginning, Chavez's revolution brought ties with FARC members—Castro allies who picked up drug trafficking where the cartels left off. Given its anti-Americanism, Caracas has ignored or defied U.S. drug interdiction requests—allowing Venezuela, with full government complicity, to become a multibillion dollar transshipment point for European and African-bound cocaine. A crime pandemic has followed in its wake, consuming Venezuela's 29 million people, leaving them some of the world's very highest homicide rates—often at the mercy of gangs operating with impunity well beyond the prison walls that ostensibly house them. A Numeric Advantage attack by the FARC on El Cerrejon, Colombia's largest coal mine operated by Anglo American, BHP Billiton and Xstrata. But under Uribe's decisive antiguerilla campaign, along with a demobilization of the paramilitaries formed to fight them, have yielded successes. Indeed in 10 years, some 54,000 paramilitaries have been disbanded, kidnappings are down a reported 90%, guerrilla attacks have declined 71% and homicides are down by half. Former Gen. Oscar Naranjo, who led the cartel crackdown, is now security adviser to a Mexico embroiled in its own drug violence. Colombian military units have also trained local police in opium-heavy, NATO-occupied Afghanistan. 62 E&MJ; • JULY 2013 More positive numbers have proliferated in Colombia—with FDI between 2002 and 2008 quadrupling and then doubling by 2011 to $14.4 billion, up from $6.8 billion in 2010—a rate of 113%. According to the United Nations Conference of Trade and Investments, 2011 was a banner year—one in which its FDI surpassed the rest of South America. Until recently, minerals have accounted for less than 3% of Colombia's economy, representing $2.6 billion in investments within the last two years. Claims for lands with reserves of base and precious metals also surged to 21 million acres in 2010—from 2.8 million in 2002. The next year, accordingly, Colombia received $4.5 billion in resource sales—twice that of 2006. www.e-mj.com