Chile environmental submissions decline in October

Project submissions to Chile’s environmental evaluation service SEA continued to decrease in October, compared to both September and a year ago.

Investments showed a slight uptick last month thanks to increases in the energy, transport and forestry sectors.

In October, 45 projects were submitted to SEA, four less than September and five below the number in the same month of 2021, the agency’s monthly report shows.

Investments reached US$1.99bn, compared to US$1.30bn in the previous month and US$1.97bn a year ago. 

The energy sector led last month’s submissions with 13 projects, two more than in September. And investments increased from US$799mn to US$1.34bn in the same comparison.

Mining came in second with 10 projects, two less than the previous month, with investments climbing from US$11.2mn to US$25mn.

Two transport infrastructure projects worth a combined US$99mn in total were submitted last month. There were no submissions for this sector in September.

The forestry sector saw the submission of one project worth US$280mn in October, after no submissions the month before.

As in September, the port and water sectors did not see any submissions.

The biggest projects submitted for evaluation last month were: 

-Conversion of Angamos thermal plant into solar (US$450mn)

-Trupán-Cholguán wood panel production plant (US$280mn)

-Pemuco wind farm (US$230mn)

At the end of last month, there were 394 projects totaling US$36.7bn under evaluation, compared to 564 worth US$40.1bn at end-October 2021.

APPROVALS

17 projects were approved in October, two less than September, though investments rose from US$1.04bn to US$2.11bn thanks to increases in energy and mining. 

In October 2021, 38 projects worth US$1.14bn were approved.

The largest projects greenlighted by SEA last month were:

-Carmen lithium plant optimization (US$987mn)

-AVO II highway (US$714mn)

-Pampa Camarones photovoltaic plant (US$210mn)

All but one of the projects approved in October were submitted with environmental impact assessments (EIA), as opposed to environmental impact studies (EIS), which take longer to review. 

In January-October, SEA approved 310 projects worth US$12.5bn, compared to 397 worth US$16.2bn in the same period last year.