High-mountain road works and earthmoving (San Juan)
There is more road than there are contractors, and now there is proof. The project's technical study lists four roads, not one: the upgrade of the current access from Guandacol, in La Rioja —220 kilometres of gravel that climb 3,500 metres to a pass at 4,500 with gradients of more than 20 %—, the 220 new kilometres of the Northern Corridor from Angualasto, the interconnection road between the two deposits —31 kilometres, 9.5 metres wide, which also carry the water pipeline and the communications cable, and come after the first stage— and the high-mountain road to Chile. Of that corridor, as of 14 September 2026, only 63.6 kilometres are awarded: on 11 September the operator gave segment A to a joint venture with a San Juan company inside, put together at its own business rounds. Segments B, C and D —some 107 kilometres— have been under tender since January and have no published awardee, and segments E and F were left vacant in April 2026, when the operator removed from the works the joint venture that had won them a year earlier. The filter is no longer price: it is having worked at altitude.
Window: high-altitude access is built once and then it is finished; what remains afterwards is the maintenance. The works peak is 2027-2029, and as of 14 September 2026 only 63.6 of the corridor's 220 kilometres are awarded.
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What the market is made of
The TAM is activity, not capturable spoils. Pre-stripping is done by the operator with its own fleet and the firm that manages the works bundles part of the earthworks towards its global panel: that is captive. Your real gap is the access road works, the platforms and the gold leach phases, where the San Juan precedent is unanimous —no global player has won a road—: the addressable segment.
~25-35% (USD 80-150 M/yr at peak): pre-stripping and mine movement with the operator's own fleet (part of the USD 1.0 B 'Mine' line in the ITS), packages that the firm managing the works bundles with the plant towards its global panel, and the residual risk of an integrated foreign contractor (less likely in roads than in camps: the work demands people and equipment acclimatised on site)
~65-75% (USD 200-300 M/year at peak), addressable by a local/national contractor: all access road works (unanimous precedents of local and national contractors: no global player ever won a road), platforms/camps, gold leach phases and recurring maintenance. The 60%-procurement Law + RE.PRO.MIN enlarge the local SAM, BUT with the 'competitive market terms' escape valve: the legal SAM is not real SAM without capability
USD 20-50 M/yr capturable by ONE new entrant in 2-3 years: a typical package (new tender for segments E-F or 1-2 A-D segments, USD 30-80 M over 16-24 months) + a recurring maintenance contract that annualises it; scalable to 50-100 M/yr towards Pachón (2029+) with proven execution
Who really pays?
The obvious name —“the mine”— is not a single door. In high-altitude mine construction the money comes in through different channels, and knowing which one is yours is the first step:
Vicuña tenders and awards the road works directly, not through the firm that manages the works: on 11 September 2026 it awarded Segment A to a joint venture with a San Juan company inside, and earlier it had contracted the Semisa-Terusi joint venture, which it removed in April. Los Azules started its pioneer road in June 2026 and places the definitive road in 2027, with no published kilometres.
The Los Azules feasibility study budgets USD 331.6 million for the heap leach verif. How much of that earthmoving goes into the package that the firm managing the works assembles with the plant, and how much the operator tenders separately, is our own reading thesis.
Which projects move this demand
The largest mining project in Argentine history by announced investment, and, according to the operator…
see the project →Leach-based copper cathode project in Calingasta (San Juan). Company/press figures (probable, outside the resolution)…
see the project →Phase 1 of one of Argentina's two largest undeveloped copper deposits, alongside Vicuña: a resource declared by Glencore of ~6,000 Mt @ 0.43% Cu, 2.2 g/t Ag and 130 g/t Mo…
see the project →Engineering, construction, operation and maintenance of new leach pads (phases 8 and 9) at Veladero Mine, to sustain gold production and exports…
see the project →Reactivation and deepening of the Gualcamayo gold and silver mine (San Juan): the 'Deep Carbonates (DCP)' project extends the mine life toward the sulfide orebody at depth…
see the project →When the window opens
The cordillera's road works are split into segments and each award says who inherited the edge for the next one. And there are more works than were being counted. The technical report lists four roads: the upgrade of the current access from Guandacol, in La Rioja —with changes at the pass to ease gradients, realignment of stretches, relocation of power lines and a bypass around the town the road goes through today—; the 220 new kilometres of the Corredor Norte from Angualasto; the interconnection road between the two deposits, 31 kilometres with a minimum width of 9.5 metres, which also carries the water pipe and the communications cable and comes after the first stage; and the high-mountain one to Chile, which is a stage 3 work. The status as of 14 September 2026: Segment A awarded on 11 September (63.6 km, with a 100-metre bridge over the Río Blanco; the provincial press speaks of some 300 jobs for 24 months of works prob Tiempo de San Juan, 11-Sep-2026 and another article, of 18 September, of a contract of USD 135,012,246 over 27 months prob EconoJournal; the operator's release gives neither term nor amount), segments B, C and D out to tender since January and with no published awardee (some 107 km) and segments E and F vacant since April, with no new tender announced. To that add the Los Azules access road, which as of 14 September 2026 was in early works and whose full construction hangs on an investment decision set for mid-2027, and the provincial infrastructure plan, whose USD 600 million bond has already been placed, on 24 September 2026 according to the press, and already has an announced work: the 24.5-kilometre motorway on Ruta Nacional 20 to Caucete, not yet tendered. ⚠️ And one condition that depends on nobody: part of the northern access road, on the route of the 2020 study, falls inside the buffer zone of the San Guillermo Provincial Reserve, where activities require environmental supervision and may require prior approval. The four numbers below say how much is left and who is going to pay.
See the evidence
See the evidence
See the evidence
See the evidence
Final decision the company places «as early as the end of 2026»; without a final investment decision, segments A-D and the on-site peak (~60% of the TAM estim) slip. The approved RIGI (Resolución 1154/2026, BO 30-Jul-2026) reduces the risk but does not remove it. It is the nearest killer
2027-2029: copper below the studies' base-case price re-sequences Los Azules (19.8% IRR verif release of the Los Azules feasibility study, Oct-2025) and above all El Pachón (no approved RIGI and no environmental report filed: the company aims to file it in the first half of 2027), the shakiest leg.
See the evidence
Recurring across the whole window. Real precedent: in Apr-2026 the Chilecito judge ordered by summary injunction (case file 45863) a 30-day suspension of Vicuña's activities and a block on transit through La Rioja territory.
See the evidence
2026-2028: a foreign contractor with its own road-building arm would capture whole packages; the camp (USD 52 M vs 70 M prob three outlets converging on the award) proved that a 25-35% difference moves the needle. Mitigated by acclimatisation/logistics and scorable local content
See the remaining risk
Work executable ~Oct-May: a delayed award loses the year (already happened with E-F, winter 2026). And the bulk of the TAM is 2026-2030 with a Pachón tail 2029-2034; afterward a perpetual maintenance core of only ~USD 20-40 M/year estim remains — it is a wave, not an annuity
The opportunity in depth
The opportunity in depth
⭐ Partner up, which is the route that has just worked and has a case. On 11 September 2026 the operator awarded the corridor's first 63.6 kilometres to a joint venture of two national builders with a San Juan company inside, and it says itself that this joint venture was put together at its business rounds. Article 14 of the provincial law gives it legal form: an association with at least 25 % local participation enrols as a supplier and counts the proportional amount.
Aim at what still has no contractor: segments B, C and D, some 107 kilometres under tender since January 2026 and with no published awardee, and segments E and F, some 50 kilometres above 3,500 metres that were left vacant in April 2026 and have no new tender announced. They are the corridor's hardest and that is why they are still open.
As a work-front subcontractor to a national awardee, or in a joint venture: rock blasting, culverts, minor bridges. ⭐ And there are two works that ask for a different profile: the interconnection road between the two deposits, 31 kilometres at 9.5 metres wide, which carries the water pipeline and the communications cable alongside and which the technical report leaves for after the first stage, and the relocation of the existing power lines in the upgrade of the current access, which is on the La Rioja side.
Recurring road maintenance as an anchor that annualises the SME and survives the end of the construction: it is what the San Juan firm that won the reserved tender won in June 2025, over 170 kilometres in three segments and for some 13 months. ⭐ And there is a second buyer almost nobody counts: the province, with the USD 600 million from the bond it placed in September 2026, which, unlike the mine, tenders through public tender documents and not by invitation. The named work it announced with that money on 6 October 2026 is a road but not a high-altitude one: a 24.5-kilometre motorway on Ruta Nacional 20, between the city and Caucete, with 36 months of works and not yet tendered. And the USD 250 million agreement with Vicuña has a road work whose destination the government confirmed on 6 August 2026: Ruta Nacional 40 Norte, between Albardón and Jáchal, still without published kilometres, cost or schedule. It is demand for aggregates, asphalt, concrete and haulage on the plains.
See the detail
When you get paid, and what blocks it
already in
split
The most established in mining earthworks: it took Veladero's Phase 8A valley leach (earthworks + geosynthetics + HDPE), scheduled from January to April 2025, with a peak of 500 people on site prob, and it is the third time it has done that mine's geosynthetics; works at Gualcamayo.
It built El Pachón's two bridges over the Los Patos and Colorado rivers between July 2024 and January 2026, according to the client itself verif, does road works at Los Azules prob and in June 2025 won the maintenance of the 170 km Angualasto-La Majadita road at Vicuña for some 13 months (~100 jobs), in a tender reserved for San Juan companies prob.
Terminated Apr-2026 on segments E-F for non-performance; according to the provincial press it had bid 30-35% below its competitors prob; its fall IS the market vacancy
Track record at Veladero: the expansion of the valley leach, Phase 6, between 2019 and 2020, according to its own website; it is part of the joint venture that won Segment A of the Corredor Norte on 11-Sep-2026 verif; according to the press, that contract is for USD 135,012,246 over 27 months prob
See the remaining player
A large national builder appears in the Los Azules FS as a contributor (a threat of entry from above); the B-D awardees are the map's key information gap. A Chinese builder: 0% in roads but proved in camps that global pricing competes
The jobs it createsJobs: ~100 direct per contract (Zlato 100, E-F ~100, Pachón bridges 120 with 90% from Calingasta). La lectura completa para el que busca trabajo, en la hoja de este nicho para la gente →
calculate it
The number is our own estimate. The calculation, step by step, is below.
The full calculation, step by step
Concentration Low-to-medium and transitory: no player exceeds around 20 % and a good part of the corridor is still unawarded. As of 14 September 2026, of some 220 kilometres there are 63.6 awarded, some 107 under tender since January with no published awardee and some 50 vacant since April. The hard scarcity data point: the road tender reserved for San Juan firms drew six bidders, and the most critical package was left without a contractor when the operator removed the joint venture that had won it a year earlier. ⭐ And there is a second data point visible in who wins: A San Juan contractor has worked on the province's three large copper projects: El Pachón's bridges verif , road works at Los Azules prob a single source and the maintenance of Vicuña's road prob provincial press; that it is the only one is our reading thesis. For a newcomer that means few bidders and a repeat winner; for the buyer it means concentration risk on the same installed capacity.
The rule that moves it
This niche's driver is provincial: San Juan's Local Mining Development Law reserves part of mining procurement for the local supplier and turns provincial qualification into a competitive advantage.
See the underlying reading
The underlying policy that opens up this demand. It is the same inference declared by the rules and the program pillars pushing in this direction.
lowers country risk + the RIGI promise is keptSee the full legal grounds
Where the number comes from
~USD 250-370 M/year (converges with the by-package calculation)
See the calculation, the variables and how it was validated
The figure holds up along two converging paths. The simplest to watch is top-down: how much is built per year in San Juan, times the share that is road works and earthmoving.
The package-by-package calculation —Vicuña's Northern Corridor + Los Azules accesses and heap + Veladero phases + El Pachón's start + recurring maintenance— adds up to ~USD 1,200-1,650 M over the 2026-2030 window with the Segment A contract price, some USD 240-330 M a year on average estim. The 2027-2029 annual peak we publish, ~USD 300-400 M, comes from the top-down calculation plus El Pachón's start, which does not depend on the price per kilometre; with the corridor's new price, the most likely outcome is that the real peak lands in the upper part of that band thesis.
The number rests on a few variables. The formula shows how it moves when each one changes; and each variable carries its freshness seal — how often it is worth revisiting. estim
The floor of the figure comes from hard data opened at the official source: the Los Azules feasibility study budgets USD 93.6 M for accesses and USD 331.6 M for the heap leach —earthmoving-intensive work—, and the large project's technical report describes four roads with their geometry: the current 220 kilometre access that climbs 3,500 metres to a pass at 4,500 with gradients of more than 20 %, the 220 new kilometres of the Northern Corridor from Angualasto, the 31 kilometre interconnection road 9.5 metres wide, and the high-mountain one to Chile.⚠️ And two things that circulate and cannot be asserted. That this is «the largest mining road project under way in the country» has no measurement to back it, and the comparison universe exists: Catamarca is executing at the same time a mining road plan of more than a hundred kilometres towards the Puna, so without a national measurement —which does not exist— the label is indefensible. And the reference price quoted —USD 70-80 M for 50 kilometres, with a bid 30-35 % below— appears in only one of the pieces that covered the termination, in the conditional and as the competitors' budgets, and the operator does not publish contract amounts: it goes as a press reference, and it is stated as such.And the provincial bond law, read in its text and not in the press: it authorises up to USD 600 million and earmarks them exclusively for public investment, infrastructure works and capital spending. ⚠️ It does not say «current spending prohibited», which is how the press tells it: it gets there by the positive route. And the law does not mention any axis —neither National Route 40, nor Agua Negra—: the five axes come from the Ministerio de Economía via the press. What it does say and nobody published: it authorises pledging federal revenue-sharing as collateral, authorises extension of jurisdiction to foreign courts and exempts the operation from every provincial tax.
Coverage: the registries of San Juan's two mining supplier chambers —CASEMI's 187 members and CAPRIMSA's 40 published—, of which 26 and six declare construction, civil works, earthworks or road engineering · Sep 14, 2026 · not reviewed: the Registry of Public Works Contractors, which is the universe the law requires, publishes the enrolment procedure but not the roll of those enrolled; and the awardees of sections B, C and D were not published
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). High-mountain road works and earthmoving (San Juan) · San Juan. despegueargentina.com/en/san-juan/obra-vial-movimiento-suelo-minero · terms of use
Neighbouring markets2 markets in the same group, from USD 20 to USD 550 M a year
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