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The ANM launched the Ronda Minera Cobre on 15 December 2025 following cabinet approval in October 2025, opening a public competitive selection process for 14 pre-qualified Áreas Estratégicas Mineras across four Colombian departments:
Each AEM block offered under the round carries pre-cleared documentation: geological certification from the Servicio Geológico Colombiano, environmental viability sign-off, and community-consultation status (either sin consulta previa or consulta previa cumplida), plus signed agreements with local authorities. This front-loading model directly addresses the principal drag on Colombian mining project development under the Petro government, where environmental and community permitting has created 2–5-year delays even after concession award.
Concessions are awarded as Contratos Especiales de Exploración y Explotación (CEEE), a CEEE instrument type introduced by Decreto 0977/2024 (Distritos Mineros Especiales) specifically for AEM blocks. The competitive selection process uses objective criteria with an evaluation horizon of up to 10 months. The Términos de Referencia were constructed with input from ANM, Ministerio de Minas y Energía, the Colombian Geological Service, DNP, UPME, and approximately 180 public comments from citizens, academia, industry guilds, and international organisations.
This round is the first concrete operational tender instrument under the Petro government's "Colombia Potencia Mundial de la Vida" mining-for-life framing. The Petro administration has been criticised for permitting uncertainty and rhetorical hostility toward extractive FDI; this round signals the operative posture is structurally open to responsible-mining investment (via CEEE mechanism) while maintaining state strategic-sector designation architecture (via AEM/Resolución 1006). It operationalises three prior filings in the Colombia cohort:
1. Resolución 1006/2023 (23-11-30): established the AEM strategic-minerals designation list that identified these 14 blocks as priority copper zones. 2. Decreto 0977/2024 (24-08-02): created the CEEE contract instrument and Distritos Mineros Especiales framework under which the round is structured. 3. PL 282/2025 — Nueva Ley Minera (25-10-01): the draft statute proposing the broader mining law reform under which AEM rounds are intended to operate; this round proceeds under the existing Código de Minas while the nueva ley is still in legislative passage.
Colombia's positioning as a next-marginal-supply copper jurisdiction in the 2030+ supply-gap thesis (Wood Mackenzie, S&P/CRU base-case incremental-supply scenarios) makes these 14 AEM blocks material for global copper pipeline allocation decisions by AngloGold Ashanti (Quebradona), Libero Copper (Mocoa), and Sumitomo (regional partnerships).