Halo Minerals wins Chile permit to dredge Chañaral copper tailings

Halo Minerals won Chilean housing ministry clearance on Oct. 23 to dredge copper-bearing tailings from Chañaral beach for its Playa Verde project, Mining.com reported. The permit lets Minera Playa Verde recover mineral-bearing material from the beach, including within the urban area, and advances the project toward a final investment decision the company has not yet taken.

Halo trades on AIM under ticker HALO, so the exposure is a small-cap equity tied to a single pre-FID asset. The permit settles one permitting question while leaving project economics unchanged; capital cost, offtake arrangements, resource grade and any urban-area dredging conditions are not stated in the report.

Playa Verde is designed to process about 5 million tonnes of mineral-bearing material a year and produce an estimated 8,600 tonnes of payable copper in cathodes and concentrates, according to Halo. The company projects annual cash flow of roughly $50 million at that throughput — a company projection, not a study result the coverage reports. The operation would use dredging equipment to recover tailings deposited at Chañaral, then move the material to a metallurgical processing plant.

Mining.com’s report cites a forecast of global copper consumption rising 61% between 2026 and 2050 to nearly 46 million tonnes a year, against a potential shortfall of 20 million tonnes, or 44% of projected demand. BHP estimates copper demand from data centres could increase sixfold by 2050, with a single hyperscale AI facility needing as much as 50,000 tonnes compared with 5,000 to 15,000 tonnes for a conventional installation.

The next gate is the final investment decision, and the report does not describe how the project would be financed.