Key Points —A bilateral Brazil-Argentina report confirms Vaca Muerta gas can meet Southern Cone demand for over 50 years at competitive production costs. —Brazil’s Energy Ministry proposes a $1.6 billion, 593-km pipeline from Uruguayana to Porto Alegre to carry Argentine gas. —Argentine gas at $5-5.50/MMBTU competes against $16-17 in Brazilian industry, creating a massive price […]

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Key Points —President Sheinbaum signed the Agreement for the Promotion of the National Steel Industry, requiring all government steel purchases to be sourced from domestic producers. —The pact covers 19 federal agencies and three industry chambers, with over $8 billion in investment commitments and 90,000 direct jobs at stake. —Mexico produced 14 million tonnes of […]

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Key Points — Chile’s state copper miner Codelco entered a $12 million Codelco Pedernales lithium exploration project into environmental evaluation Monday April 27, 2026. The plan filed with Chile’s Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental (SEA) covers 114 boreholes across Codelco’s existing land claims in the Salar de Pedernales, Atacama Region. — The Pedernales filing opens a […]

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Key Points — The Chile Codelco debt situation has reached a structural inflection point under President José Antonio Kast’s new government. The state-owned copper giant — the world’s largest copper producer with 1.332 million tonnes in 2025 (29.6% of national output, 6.1% of world supply) — carries debt above US$20 billion as of late 2025, […]

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Key Points — A 27-page study published Monday April 27 by GEM Mining Consulting projects that the Chile mining tax reform proposed by President José Antonio Kast could add 13.8 million tonnes of copper and 1.3 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) production over 2026-2046. The study was authored by Juan Ignacio Guzmán and […]

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Key Points — A New York Times investigation published Sunday by Colombian photojournalist Federico Ríos documented a Clan del Golfo gold mine operating not just adjacent to but partly inside the Battalion Rifles 31 Colombian army base in Caucasia, Antioquia. Drone footage showed extraction reaching to roughly 137 meters from the base commander’s private pool. […]

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Peru F-16 Crisis: Chancellor and Defence Minister Resign, US Ambassador Threatens Reprisals, MEF Pays $462M Anyway — Brazil Expands Minha Casa Minha Vida to R$600,000, Middle Class Enters Housing Programme — Argentina: Milei Bans All 60 Journalists from Casa Rosada, Hosts Peter Thiel Same Day, Approval Crashes to 14th of 18 LATAM Leaders — Peru […]

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Key Points —Chile’s Kast government committed on April 23 to keep the 12.5% first-category corporate tax rate on small and medium enterprises (PyMEs) permanent, after a two-hour La Moneda meeting with sector leaders. —The commitment reverses the Reconstrucción Nacional bill’s schedule, which had the PyME rate rising to 23% in 2029 — matching Kast’s planned […]

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Key Points —Colombia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy will issue a resolution adding a national surcharge of 8 pesos per kilowatt-hour on upper-class households (strata 4, 5 and 6) and on commercial and industrial users. —The surcharge is designed to raise around 235 billion pesos (roughly US$66 million) in its first year and flow entirely […]

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Key Points —Interim president José María Balcázar swore in Carlos Pareja Ríos, a 75-year-old career diplomat and former ambassador to the United States, as Peru’s new foreign minister on the evening of April 23. —Hours before his appointment, Pareja publicly criticised Balcázar on Canal N, warning that the postponement of the F-16 contract had the […]

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Key Points —Sergio Fajardo’s third presidential campaign, registered on March 13 with running mate Edna Bonilla, has pushed his signature education platform into the background to contest security with the right and economic inequality with the left. —The centrist former Medellín mayor has called for the reactivation of oil and gas exploration — a direct […]

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Key Points — NOAA’s April 2026 outlook gives a 61% probability of El Niño emergence in the May-July window rising to 62% for June-August, with a 1-in-3 chance the event classifies as “strong” during October-December 2026. — A moderate-to-strong event would cut Andean GDP by 0.6-1.7 percentage points, threaten 50% of LATAM’s hydro-dependent electricity supply, […]

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