Chubut Argentina today

So what we have happening in Chubut Argentina today is provincial governor Martín Buzzi holding a press conference to announce the creation of a bill of law to be debated in the Chubut regional parliament concerning mining and hydrocarbons and stuff. The presser is scheduled for midday and so far we hear the following:

• Locals around any project will be given the right to vote it up or down in a public consultancy and vote system
• Uranium is to be declared "strategic fuel", which means it'll be easier to get a U project permitted than any other metals mining project
• 1% of any mining revenue is to stay with local municipal governments around the project

This is still a happening in motion and there are bound to be more details and subjects broached so once the presser is done and reliable reports are available we'll know more. There's also bound to be plenty of debate about this between the pro/anti mine factions. If anything worth knowing turns up, this post will get updates.

UPDATE: Two main points to add from this report of the presser are that 1) royalties will be 8% with 1% of that for the municipal governments (as above) and 2) a new Chubut State company called Petrominera will be an obligatory partner in any project in the Chubut province. We need to stress that the bill as presented today is still an early stage document that will need to pass through committees and debated by parliament before becoming law.