Mining Minister Maria Nohemi Arboleda announced Thursday that Colombia has repealed 10 resolutions that had blocked exploration and extraction in designated mining districts, one of the new government’s first concrete steps to reverse predecessor Gustavo Petro’s environmental restrictions on the industry.
Colombia has had a right-wing president for barely a month. Abelardo De La Espriella, a political outsider nicknamed “El Tigre” and endorsed by US President Trump, won June’s runoff by under 1% and took office August 7, succeeding Petro, the country’s first president from the left. Thursday’s repeal unwinds rules Petro’s government built as part of a green-energy agenda that pushed the industry to prioritize strategic minerals over broader extraction, tightening environmental rules.
One repealed measure, Decree 044 from January 2024, had given the environment ministry power to freeze mining for up to a decade in ecologically sensitive high-altitude wetlands known as páramos. In Antioquia, which produces more gold than anywhere else in Colombia, officials had frozen new mining permits across six municipalities for three years.
The bigger opportunity is copper. Chile and Peru dominate global copper output from the same Andean belt that runs through Colombia, yet Colombia barely factors into world production. Just 4,200 tonnes came out of the country in 2025, nearly all of it from Atico Mining‘s (TSXV: ATY) El Roble mine. Chile produced about 5.5 million tonnes that year, and Peru 2.7 million.
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Colombia has put 14 copper-focused exploration areas up for tender since late 2025, part of a broader list of 17 minerals it now treats as strategic. The named development pipeline includes AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU), Cordoba Minerals (TSXV: CDB) and Royal Road Minerals (TSXV: RYR), plus Copper Giant Resources (TSXV: CGNT), whose southern Putumayo project posted a strong copper intercept in late August. Another one is Collective Mining (TSX: CNL), whose Guayabales project in Caldas, hundreds of kilometers north, began drilling a new target this week.
Turning potential into production won’t be automatic, according to mineral consultant Juan Ignacio Guzman, who said success “will not happen on potential alone” and that Colombia will need one or two sizeable projects to reach production.
And then there’s security as a separate obstacle. Colombia’s illegal gold mining sector remains entangled with organized crime, keeping costs and permitting delays higher for legal operators nearby. De La Espriella can simplify procedures and speed up licensing on his own, but bigger legislative changes will need support from a Congress split narrowly enough that his governing majority remains uncertain.
