Chile moves to formalize critical minerals strategy

Chilean lawmakers have introduced a bill to establish a legal framework governing critical minerals, aiming to secure supply chains and address a regulatory gap without altering existing mining laws.

A cross-party group of senators, including Paulina Núñez, José Miguel Calisto, Iván Flores, Gastón Saavedra and Iván Moreira, tabled the proposal, now in its initial constitutional stage and under review by the Senate’s Mining and Energy Committee.

The initiative would create a special legal regime covering the full value chain of critical minerals, adding standards for management, information, traceability and operational continuity as their strategic importance grows in the global economy.

“This new scenario” has shifted how such resources are valued, the senators wrote, arguing that continuous access to certain minerals now underpins industrial resilience, supply security and national technological capacity. The proposal highlights a broader paradigm shift in which minerals are no longer seen solely as extractive inputs but as essential to sustaining complex production chains, innovation and industrialization.

The draft legislation defines critical minerals as those essential to strategic sectors, exposed to significant supply disruption risks and lacking viable substitutes in the short or medium term. It includes lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite used in batteries; copper for electrification; rare earth elements for electric vehicles and wind turbines; and materials such as molybdenum, rhenium, antimony and selenium, along with silicon, tellurium and indium for solar technologies.

Proponents say the framework is needed to reflect a shift beyond mining toward processing capacity, external dependency and resilience to market disruptions, noting Chile’s current regulations were designed for a largely extractive model.

By introducing targeted oversight without changing the broader mining regime, the bill aims to strengthen traceability and supply security while positioning Chile to compete in a global landscape where control of critical minerals carries growing technological and geopolitical weight.