On Argentina’s side of the Andes, Beijing builds a city for 5,000 miners

The Cordillera Sanjuanina, a stretch of the Andes mountain range located in San Juan Province, will soon become home to thousands of workers living in a newly built city. Created as part of the Vicuña mining project, the site will serve as the base camp for the mega-project led by Lundin Mining and BHP and will consist of white modular units functioning as homes, offices, service facilities and even restaurants.

Yet everything used to create this temporary city will be manufactured in China and shipped across the ocean, ready to be assembled in the Argentine mountains.

The project initially envisages the installation of 2,500 beds in the Batidero housing complex. However, the rotational nature of mining work will significantly increase the number of people passing through the camp. Under typical shift patterns of 14 days on and 14 days off, or 21 days on and seven days off, between 3,500 and 5,000 workers are expected to rotate through the city, which will be manufactured in Asia and transported ready-made to Argentina.

Company projections estimate that, once the deposits reach full development, labour demand will rise to 12,000 workers, requiring the complex to be expanded to around 6,000 beds.

On its website, Beijing Chengdong, part of the consortium awarded the contract to manufacture the complex, showcases the model destined for San Juan. The specifications describe prefabricated modular “container houses” built around steel-frame structures that can be assembled with bolts in multiple configurations of up to three storeys, allowing for rapid installation on site.

The company’s closest regional precedent was a mining camp built in Mexico last year, comprising 10,000 square metres of accommodation, offices and restaurants. For that complex, the firm used reinforced modules secured with anchor cables to withstand extreme winds. The product is marketed internationally as a turnkey solution, arriving on site with furniture, appliances and internal connections already installed.

The cost of building this type of module in China is around US$500 per square metre, plus approximately US$200 in international freight costs. By comparison, prefabricated accommodation for a permanent mining camp in Argentina costs around US$1,300 per square metre – almost double the US$700 combined construction and logistics cost. The figures highlight the difficulties local manufacturers face competing with Chinese suppliers, as well as the burden of the so-called “Argentine cost” frequently cited by businesses facing high taxes and operating expenses.

The decision to adjudicate the construction to a consortium headed by PowerChina together with Beijing Chendong and Santa Fe firm RAFA S.A. has reignited debate over the hidden costs for Argentine labour. In modular construction, around 80 percent of the work is carried out in the factory. Industry sources told Perfil that building the camp domestically would have generated at least 500 direct jobs. Importing the modules from China reduces that figure significantly, largely limited to logistics and on-site assembly work in San Juan.

The Asian consortium’s bid was US$52 million, beating Argentine firm Modular Homes, which had submitted an offer of US$70 million. The US$18-million difference represents just 0.1 percent of the US$18-billion investment projected for the Vicuña project. The PowerChina bid also benefits from customs-duty exemptions available under the RIGI (Régimen de Incentivo a las Grandes Inversiones) incentive regime introduced by President Javier Milei’s government for major investments.

The decision caused considerable unease among local business leaders, who estimate that a project of this scale – expected to remain in the San Juan mountains for at least 25 years – could have generated at least 150 direct jobs and additional indirect employment across some 50 companies. “When a project of this scale is carried out entirely with imported materials, the country misses out on a strategic opportunity,” Juan Pablo Rudoni, president of the Argentine Chamber of Industrialised Modular Construction (CACMI), told Perfil.

Vicuña, the joint venture formed by Lundin Mining and BHP, defended the decision, saying the selected proposal best met its technical, execution, safety, scheduling and cost requirements. The company added that it continues to prioritise local participation where competitive capabilities exist, noting that more than 95 percent of its current workforce is Argentine and around 73 percent of its direct employees come from San Juan Province.

The broader Vicuña initiative is one of the largest foreign investments in Argentina’s history. The project formally applied to enter the RIGI scheme in December 2025 as a long-term strategic export project and is being developed in phases, beginning with the construction of the Josemaría deposit and later expanding to include the Filo del Sol copper project. The operation, categorised as a Long-Term Strategic Export Project (PEELP in its Spanish acronym), is expected to produce an average of 400,000 tons of copper annually during its first 25 years.

Nevertheless, the first link in Argentina’s new mining value chain – supplying the materials, technology and labour needed to house the workforce – will remain in Chinese hands.