Mendoza province will host governors, national officials, investors and mining companies on November 19 and 20 for the second edition of the Sustainable Mining Summit (Cumbre de Minería Sostenible), to be held at the Hilton Mendoza hotel.
According to the event's official program, the first day will feature the five governors of the Mesa del Cobre and will include panels on financing, exploration and the copper market, with the participation of BHP, the Anglo-Australian mining major, and Teck Resources, the Canadian miner.
The agenda is organized around three themes: Institutions and Governance, Environment and Society, and Economy and Finance. Registration opens at 8 a.m. and the opening session starts at 9, led by Mendoza Governor Alfredo Cornejo and the national Mining Secretary, Luis Lucero.
Copper Governors Share the Opening Panel With AmCham
At 10 a.m., in the Salón Sol C and D, Theme 1 begins with the “Mesa del Cobre + AmCham” panel. Speakers will be Cornejo; Carlos Sadir, governor of Jujuy; Gustavo Sáenz, governor of Salta; Marcelo Orrego, governor of San Juan; and Raúl Jalil, governor of Catamarca. The panel will be moderated by Martín Genesio, vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Argentina (AmCham) and CEO of AES Argentina Generación, and by Jimena Latorre, Mendoza's minister of Energy and Environment.
The five provinces make up the Mesa del Cobre, the interprovincial forum their governors set up on May 22, 2024, during the Expo San Juan Minera trade fair, to jointly promote copper projects. The same group opened the first edition of the summit, in November 2024, also at the Hilton.
The institutional theme continues at 2:20 p.m. with a panel that looks toward the Andes: “Mendoza and Chile Improving Their Capabilities as a Mining Region.” Participants will be Antonella Tassaroli, president of Fundación Tassaroli S.A.; Juan Pablo Puerino, president of Fundación Plan Pilares and of the Consejo Empresario Mendocino; Guillermo Pensado, vice president of Plan Pilares; Carlos Tassaroli and Manuel Baños, directors of that foundation; Osvaldo Urzúa, director of the Center for Copper and Mining Studies (CESCO); Cristian Cifuentes, from the same center's Studies and Content area; and José Pablo Domínguez, director of the Association of Industrial Suppliers to Mining (APRIMIN).
Integration with Chile has accompanied the summit since it was announced. Cornejo confirmed this second edition in June, in the Chilean city of Los Andes, during the “Cordillera que une” binational meeting, where he presented the Andes as a platform for mining integration between the two countries.
The main hall closes the day at 5 p.m. with “Mining Argentina: The Provinces' View,” the panel of the provincial mining ministers. Speakers will be Latorre; José Gómez, Jujuy's minister of Mining; José Ignacio Lupión, Salta's minister of Production and Mining; Juan Pablo Perea, San Juan's minister of Mining; and Teresita Regalado, Catamarca's minister of Mining. Roberto Cacciola, president of the Argentine Chamber of Mining Companies (CAEM), will moderate.
Lawyers, Canadian Geologists and BHP Discuss How a Project Gets Financed
Theme 3, Economy and Finance, starts at 11:30 a.m. with the panel “M&A – Mining Investment and Financing: What Makes a Project Investable in Argentina.” Participants will be Fernando Pickmann (Dentons), Marcelo Olivares (VOMA Abogados) and Leonardo Rodríguez (Marval, O'Farrell & Mairal), with Bernardo Saravia Frías (Saravia Frías Abogados) as moderator.
At 12:10 p.m. comes the international panel “Exploration Investment Strategies,” which will address why the mining industry needs to invest in exploration, what guidance exists for investors at that stage and how capital strategies are built to finance it. Speakers will be three geologists from Canada: Neil Adshead, an analyst and investment fund manager; Nicole Adshead-Bell, director of Cupel Advisory Corp.; and Joe Mazumdar, editor and analyst at Exploration Insights. Sebastián Piña, general manager of Impulsa Mendoza, the provincial company that promotes mining projects, will moderate.
Exploration returns to the hall at 4:30 p.m., when René Muga, BHP's vice president of Corporate Affairs and Communications, and Emily Nicholls, manager of Xplor, will give the talk “Copper Looking to the Future: A Perspective for Latin America.” There they will present BHP Xplor, the company's program to accelerate investment in exploration companies.
Teck Resources and the Copper Market Reach the Salón Sol A Workshops
In parallel with the panels, the Salón Sol A will have its own program. At 11:30 a.m., Mariel Palomeque, director of Sustainability Integration and Performance at Ausenco, will present interactive experiences for communicating mining projects, within Theme 2, Environment and Society. At 12:10 p.m., Andrés Castillo, Teck Resources' exploration manager for Chile and Argentina, will speak about the company and its projects in Argentina.
The afternoon continues at 2:30 p.m. with a workshop on the Ten Universal Principles of the UN Global Compact and at 3:20 p.m. with BYMA Educa, the financial education program of Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos (BYMA), Argentina's stock exchange, led by Agustín Roca. At 4:30 p.m., Nicolás Daher, an economist and analyst at The Economist, will close the room with “Understanding the Copper Market: A Future at Risk of Scarcity.”
Mendoza's copper sector already has its flagship project. The provincial Legislature ratified the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) of PSJ Cobre Mendocino in December 2025, in Uspallata, and in May 2026 the project entered Argentina's Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI). According to the company, whose shareholders are Zonda Metals and Grupo Alberdi, total investment amounts to $891 million, of which some $630 million corresponds to building the mine.
The first day ends at 7:30 p.m. with an opening after-office at the Hotel Hualta. On November 20, the summit resumes its agenda with panels on the Mining Code and the RIGI, the mining regulatory framework from a federal perspective, global banking and critical minerals.