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1) Mike Parent, vice president of prevention services at Workplace Safety North, predicts that 2023 will test the mining industry saying that the biggest hurdle will be attracting and training skilled workers. "Unfortunately, there's a bit of a perception that mining is [dangerous]. If there is a bad thing that happens in mining, it seems to catch the eye of the media, and that seems to paint the sector with that stigma," he said. Many companies have trouble trying to attract top talent while competing with companies such as Google and Amazon, and retaining workers is a challenge as well with many mines being remote and away from worker's families and cities. Although this past year, 29 families were tragically affected by the loss of life at mining operations, this is still lower than some other jobs that do not get the stigma that our industry gets. Hiring and retaining will be a challenge but the industry needs to work on it to have any success not just for the company's sake, but for our society as a whole.
2) The Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines showed in its latest Bulletin that accumulated mining investments rose by 3.2% through November 2022 to $4.6 billion compared to the $4.4 billion accrued the year before. The biggest contributing company was Anglo American with $964 million or about 2% of the total. After Anglo American came Minera Antamina, which is co-owned by Glencore, BHP, Teck and Mitsubishi, which invested $394 million, followed by Newmont with $322 million invested and Southern Peru investing $238 million. Together, these companies invested about $1.9 billion or about 41% of the mining investments in Peru in 2022.
The uptick in investments of Peru may be because of the uncertainty of Chile's government and the high demand for copper and other critical minerals needed for the green transition.