How mining concession auctions work

Every mining concession pays an annual concession fee (patente) in March. If it is not paid, the General Treasury (TGR) brings judicial auction proceedings: the concession is awarded to the highest bidder and, if no one bids, the court may declare the ground open (terreno franco). The subsequent formalities take time, and those delays explain why the same concession reappears year after year in this monitor.

The full cycle

“Open ground” refers to that concession, not to the area. Concessions may overlap: the lapse of one does not mean the land is available — other concessions in force or pending may cover the same area, and this monitor does not report that. The situation of the area must be checked on the map, examining which other concessions in force or pending cover it.

How to read the columns

Each row is a court case for a particular period. The numbers count roll number + type pairs: the same National Roll No. may exist for an exploration and for an exploitation concession, and these are different concessions.

Pairs on the list: remain subject to the proceedings; no auction has yet resolved their position.
Open ground: an operative declaration appears in the case file, whether final or not, including partial declarations (covering only some pertenencias) and those under appeal.
Excluded: left the auction, either because the court so ruled or because the TGR withdrew them in an updated list. The reason for exclusion is reported only when it appears in the case file; the monitor does not presume it.
Awarded: awarded to a bidder at the auction.
Other: the case file does not support a definite outcome. This includes, among other situations, cases where the auction had no bidders but no ruling declared the ground open, contradictions, and cases closed without an auction or abandoned.
Auction held: whether the case file records that the auction took place. “Undetermined” means that the case file does not establish it.

In the monitor, the Open ground column counts operative declarations in the case file whether or not they are final: we display open ground from the moment the court declares it, because this information is relevant immediately. Declarations with a pending appeal are also counted there. Appearing in that column does not mean that the registry entry has been canceled or that the concession has been removed from the National Roll. Where the ruling is not yet final, the analysis indicates this as: “Operative declaration — ruling not yet final, subject to the time limit for challenge”.

Before applying for a concession over ground declared open. The law provides that mining concessions lapse “by a judicial ruling declaring the ground open, if there are no bidders at the public auction in the judicial proceedings arising from non-payment of the annual fee (patente)”, and the courts have clarified that this effect occurs once the ruling becomes final and unappealable. Until then, the concession continues to exist and the ground is not available, even if the monitor already displays the declaration. Check finality in the case file before making any decision about the area.

Case files are analyzed by artificial intelligence agents; much of this analysis has not been reviewed by our analysts and may contain errors or omissions. Before making a decision about a concession, check the case file and have it reviewed by a professional qualified in mining rights. Full details appear under “Limitations” below.

Further detail

How an auction works, step by stepFrom an unpaid annual fee to a declaration of open ground, including deadlines and the surcharge

Every mining concession must be maintained (amparo) by paying an annual fee, payable in advance during March. If it is not paid, judicial proceedings begin to offer the concession at public auction: before July 1 each year, the General Treasurer of the Republic sends each competent court a list of concessions whose annual fee has not been paid. Upon receiving the list, the judge sets the auction date and time and orders the ruling and list to be published in the Official Mining Bulletin (BOM) on two different days. The auction cannot take place until at least thirty days after the last notice.

Once the list has been sent to the court, payment costs twice as much. Until the TGR has sent the list to the court, the annual fee may still be paid without a surcharge. Once it has been sent, the holder can still remove the concession from the auction right up to the moment of the auction itself, but no longer by paying only the original debt: the law requires payment of twice the amount owed. The original amount owed is also the auction’s minimum opening bid, and the holder cannot bid for their own concession.

Not every removal from the list involves payment. If the TGR made an error or omission — a fee that had actually been paid, or a misidentified concession — any person may request a correction before the auction. The judge decides after examining the grounds (con conocimiento de causa), and the correction is published in the same way as the list. As there is no debt to settle in that situation, the doubled-fee surcharge does not apply: this is a different route from exclusion through payment.

At the auction, the concession is awarded to the highest bidder. If nobody bids after the oral calls, the absence of bidders is certified, and the law requires the judge to declare the ground open and order cancellation of the registry entries. However, the auction is not the end: a chain of subsequent formalities follows that may take years. Understanding this explains almost everything that seems confusing in this monitor.

Declared, final and canceled are three different thingsWhat extinguishes the concession, what merely reflects that in the registers, and the order in which it happens

This is the main source of confusion, even among people familiar with the sector:

The absence of bidders is not enough to establish that a declaration of open ground exists. An auction may take place with no interested bidders, but if the case file does not contain a ruling declaring the ground open, the monitor does not presume that such a declaration exists, and the case is counted under “Other”.
Declared is not the same as final. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a ruling declaring the ground open is a judgment on the merits (sentencia definitiva) and acquires res judicata effect once it becomes final and unappealable. On this issue, the Mining Code refers to the Chilean Code of Civil Procedure (CPC): the time limit for appealing a judgment on the merits is ten days (Article 189). If that period expires without an appeal, the ruling becomes final by that fact alone; the certificate of finality (certificado de ejecutoria) issued by the court clerk (Article 174) records that status rather than creating it. Until the ruling becomes final, it should be read as “operative declaration — ruling not yet final, subject to the time limit for challenge”.
Final is not the same as canceled. The declaration is accompanied by an order to cancel the entries held by the Mining Registrar (Conservador de Minas), implemented through the corresponding official letter (oficio). Only when the Registrar carries out the cancellation does the entry cease to appear in force.
Canceled is not the same as removed from the roll. SERNAGEOMIN keeps the roll of all concessions in force and oversees these actions, but it needs to receive the information. That notification has a responsible party and a deadline: the Registrar must send it a copy of the entries canceled by court ruling no later than the eighth día hábil after cancellation, and the Mining Code Regulations specify that this must be done free of charge. Until that update takes place, the concession may continue to appear in force in the records and be included again in later lists. Removal is observable: the concession ceases to appear in force in SERNAGEOMIN’s public roll. However, courts have heard cases concerning concessions declared open and without a National Roll No. whose ownership entry was never canceled: registry status and judicial status may diverge, and one does not prove the other. Nevertheless, neither cancellation nor removal from the roll is a condition for lapse: the concession already lapsed when the ruling became final, and these steps implement that ruling in the registers.

The law requires these formalities to be carried out on the authorities’ own initiative: judges, clerks and other officials must perform them without any request being necessary, and the relevant Court of Appeals oversees compliance, on its own initiative or at anyone’s request. In practice, however, the chain rarely progresses by itself: the certificate is usually requested, the official letter usually has to be pursued, and compliance usually has to be followed up. This gap between what the law requires and what actually happens explains much of the delay seen in this monitor.

Why does the same concession appear again and again?Six reasons why a concession reappears, and why this is almost always normal

This is the most common question, and it is almost always normal rather than an error:

The chain after the auction was not completed — a frequent cause. The declaration, the certificate of finality, the official letter or the actual cancellation is missing. Until cancellation and removal from the roll occur, the concession may remain in the records and be included again in later lists.
A new case begins each year. If the annual fee remains unpaid, the same concession enters the next period’s list even if the previous proceedings are still ongoing. Several periods proceed in parallel, each at its own pace.
The same concession is declared open in two cases. This follows directly from the previous point: if the first declaration did not lead to cancellation, the concession is auctioned and declared open again in the following period. It also happens when a declaration is appealed, set aside or corrected, and then issued again.
Declarations may be partial. For exploitation concessions, one period may declare the ground of some pertenencias open, and another period may cover a different part.
Auctions are repeated. If the successful bidder does not pay the price within the deadline, the award becomes ineffective by operation of law, and the judge orders the concession to be offered at auction again. An auction is also repeated when it is set aside and the proceedings return to an earlier stage.
The proceedings may be set aside. If the annual fee was paid within the legal deadline but the concession was nonetheless included in the list, courts have held that there was no valid service of process and have set aside all subsequent steps, including an auction already held.
A repeated roll number does not always mean the same concession: it may refer to an exploration and an exploitation pair sharing the same number. In addition, all concessions with unpaid annual fees covered by the same National Roll No. are auctioned as a single lot.

Limitations of this informationWhat we can establish and what remains beyond our reach

We can see removal from the roll. When SERNAGEOMIN removes a concession from its roll, that removal is reflected here: the concession appears as removed from the roll or no longer in force. It is the only step in the registry chain that is publicly recorded.
What happens at the Mining Registrar is not public. We cannot confirm whether the registry entries were canceled or on what date, and absence from the roll does not prove cancellation: there are cases of concessions without a National Roll No. whose entries remained uncanceled. The reason for removal is not recorded.
There may be administrative actions we cannot see. A declaration of open ground may be affected by later actions that do not appear in the case file. The monitor analyzes the court’s case file and does not necessarily record those actions.
Nor can we establish that an official letter was dispatched or complied with unless the case file records it. Its absence does not prove that it did not happen: it proves that it is not recorded.
Case files are analyzed by artificial intelligence agents trained for that purpose; much of the analysis has not been reviewed by our analysts and may contain errors or omissions.
The status reflects the last case file analyzed, not necessarily the present day: case files change, and analysis is updated in cycles.
Coverage begins in July 2017, when the Official Mining Bulletin became electronic. Auctions before that date are not on the platform, although their effects — cancellations, declarations of open ground and awards — may remain in force.
A concession may be extinguished in other ways. In addition to open ground, the law provides for lapse due to failure to request recording on time, lapse of an exploration concession for establishing exploitation within it, and extinguishment through the holder’s surrender, among other grounds unrelated to an auction. This monitor describes a concession’s status within judicial auction proceedings, rather than its general registry status.
“Other” and “undetermined” do not mean that nothing happened: they mean the available documents do not allow it to be established (documents not published online, illegible scanned pages or contradictory information).
This information is for reference purposes. Before making any decision about a concession, check the case file and have it reviewed by an analyst or professional qualified in mining rights: this help panel does not replace that work. The binding judicial determination rests with the competent court.

SourcesMining Code and its Regulations, Law No. 18,097 and Code of Civil Procedure

Mining Code (Law No. 18,248) — the full procedure: maintenance (amparo) through the annual fee, the TGR’s list, auction, declaration of open ground and cancellation of registry entries.
Mining Code Regulations (Supreme Decree No. 1 of 1986, Ministry of Mining) — do not regulate the auction; they set the calculation of the amount owed and the deadline for the Registrar’s notice to SERNAGEOMIN, which is free of charge.
Law No. 18,097, the Organic Constitutional Law on Mining Concessions — Article 18(a) is the rule under which the ruling declaring the ground open makes the concession lapse.
Chilean Code of Civil Procedure — applies to the auction on a supplementary basis and defines when a ruling becomes final and unappealable (firme o ejecutoriada).
Law No. 21,420 — amended Article 142 of the Code, which establishes the obligation to maintain concessions through the annual fee.
Law No. 21,649 — introduced the rules for determining the annual fee amount and the reduced annual fee.
Chilean Code of Civil Procedure — applies to the auction on a supplementary basis and defines when a ruling becomes final and unappealable (firme o ejecutoriada).