Law 20.551, which regulates the closure of mining sites and facilities in Chile, and that came into force in 2012, requires that closure plans include a closure costs estimation. For this purpose, it is necessary to value the closures activities through the product between the quantities of closure works to be executed and the unit cost for these types of work.
Furthermore, the same law establishes that the closure plans must be audited every 5 years, and consequently, the cost estimation must be revised. Therefore, those mining sites that submitted their closures plans during 2014, adjusting to the transitory period, have at least one update of their closure plans, developed under the general application procedure.
This paper seeks to analyze and visualize the dispersion of unit costs of the most relevant sub-activities used in the closure plans approved by SERNAGEOMIN[1] of mining sites located throughout the different geographical areas of Chile.
The importance of analyzing and visualizing the dispersion of the unit costs presented in the regulatory closure plans is that it allows observing how close or far they are from the average, as well as defining a range in which these values move. It also makes it possible to study whether certain factors, such as geographic location, influence the unit costs presented.
[1] SERNAGEOMIN: Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (National Geology and Mining Service). Sector entity in charge of the evaluation of the closure plans in Chile.
