Outlook for Latin America
Summary: Latin America remains in the focus of the international mining industry. Mining companies are financially supported via low tax and royalty rates, as well as favourable mining permit conditions. Nevertheless, the current results are below expectations. This article uses the examples of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru to show the current developments in the industry.
1 Introduction
In July 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised its forecasts for economic growth in Latin America downwards. The reasons given were disappointing economic development in such important countries as Brazil and Mexico, as well as increasing concerns and tensions over the export tariff battle between the US and China. Fig. 1 shows the current economic growth in the 5 most important mining countries in Latin America and the growth forecast up to 2020. The World Economic Outlook (WEO) of April 2019 has revised its expectation for growth in Latin America by -0.8 % for 2019 and -0.1 % for 2020. Brazil is the worst performer with -1.3 % and -0.1 %, while Mexico’s growth is expected to be -0.7 % in 2019. In July, Chile lowered its growth forecast for the year 2019 by 0.3 % to 3.2 %.
As regards exploration expenditures, Latin America remains at the forefront of all world regions. This is the result of a recent survey by the renowned market intelligence corporation S&P Global [1]. This survey shows that global exploration expenditures for non-ferrous metals increased by 19 % to US$ 10.1 billion (bn) in 2018, and are expected to rise by a further 5 – 10 % in 2019. Latin America has a 28 % share of global expenditure in 2018, down from 30 % a year earlier. Base metal exploration expenditures in Latin America exceeded those for gold for the first time since 2014, in contrast to the global figures. The leading countries in Latin America are Chile, Peru and Mexico, which on a global scale are only bettered by Canada, Australia and the United States.
2 The mining industry in the most important Latin American countries
2.1 Brazil
The mining industry exported commodities valued at US$ 29.96 bn in 2018 after US$ 28.38 bn in 2017 and US$ 21.62 bn in 2016 (FOB prices). This accounts for 12.5 % of Brazil’s total exports. Iron ore makes up 68 % of the mining industry’s export revenue, amounting to 389.8 million metric tonnes per year (Mta) (Fig. 5). In 2nd and 3rd places follow gold and copper concentrate, which tie at 9 % each. The exports of copper concentrate amounted to 1.25 Mta (or 335 kilotons (kt) of copper), while the gold exports amounted to 95 t. The quantities of copper concentrate and gold have increased by 8 % and 20 % respectively since 2016. Brazil intends to further expand its production volumes of gold and copper in the future. After iron ore, the largest export quantities are accounted for by bauxite, with 8.47 Mta, and manganese (2.61 Mta). Niobium only accounts for 95.5 kt.
AngloGold Ashanti, Kinross Gold and Yamana Gold, some of the world’s largest gold mining companies, are active in Brazil. Through AGA Mineração, AngloGold operates two mines (Cuiabá and Córrego do Sítio) in Minas Gerais, as well as Serra Grande in central Brazil. In 2018, a total of 494 kOz of gold was extracted there, after 557 kOz in 2017. Kinross Gold was able to significantly increase its output from the Paracatu mine (Fig. 8) in Minas Gerais. The output of mined ore increased by 73 % to 47.9 Mta, while the gold yield increased by 45 % to 521.6 kOz. Yamana Gold operates the Jacobina mine in Bahia, northeastern Brazil, which produced 145 kOz of gold in 2018. Other gold mining projects in Brazil are at the planning stage, such as Anglo American’s União Project (Cu/Au). The company is already successful with nickel mining and operates the two mines Barro Alto and Codemin in Minas Gerais. In 2018, the output of these two mines was 42.3 kt of nickel. By-products include manganese and niobium.
2.2 Chile
Chile’s economy has developed well in recent years. With the country’s GDP at US$ 289.2 bn and its population at 18.7 million, the per capita income has increased to US$ 14 670. Economic growth was 4.0 % in 2018, while inflation was only at 2.4 %. The most important mining resources in Chile are copper (20.5 % share of world reserves), molybdenum (8.2 %) and silver (4.6 %). In the case of copper, the country’s share of 27.8 % of global production in 2012 put it in first place ahead of Peru (11.4 %), China (7.6 %), USA and DR Congo (both 5.7 %). In the case of Molybdenum, Chile accounted for 20.2 % of global production (2nd place, behind China), for silver 5.1 % (4th place) and for gold 1.1 % (16th place). Approximately 80 % of Chilean copper production comes from porphyritic copper deposits in the Andes, which in addition to copper, are rich in molybdenum, gold and silver.
The mining industry in Chile accounted for 9.8 % of the country’s GDP in 2018. Copper production alone accounted for 8.9 %, leaving only 0.9 % for all the other metals [3]. Over the last 20 years, the mining industry accounted for an average of 13.8 % of the GDP. Fig. 9 shows the development of Chilean production volumes for copper, molybdenum and silver since 2012 (2012 = index 100). While copper production volume only increased by 7 % to 5.832 Mta in the period considered, molybdenum production increased by 73 % to 60.705 kt. Silver production increased by 15 % to 1.37 kt, with a peak of 1.57 kt in 2014. Investments by the mining industry dropped from US$ 15.301 bn to US$ 9.242 bn in the period from 2012 to 2018, but the trend has been rising again since 2016.
Fig. 10 provides the copper production volumes of mining companies in Chile from 2012 to 2018. Well out in front as market leader is the state-owned company Codelco (Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile) with a production volume of 1.758 Mta copper in 2012 and 1.807 Mta in 2018. This represents a market share of 32.4 % in 2012 and 31.0 % in 2018. The output of Codelco’s flagship mine El Teniente (Fig. 11) will soon be increased to 0.5 Mta. The subsequent places in the ranking after Codelco are occupied by Escondida (owned 57.5 % by BHP Billiton, 30 % Rio Tinto, 12.5 % others), Collahuasi, Anglo American Sur and Los Pelambres. Escondida’s production volume of 1.076 Mta in 2012 gave it a market share of 19.8 %, and with 1.243 Mt in 2018 it achieved a market share of 21.3 %. Collahuasi, AngloAmerican Sur and Los Pelambres recently achieved 9.6 %, 7.2 % and 6.4 % market share, respectively. An additional 24.5 % is accounted for by more than 20 other companies, including Candelaria, Cerro Colorado, El Abra, Lomas Bayas, BHP (Spence mine), Quebrada Blanca and Zaldívar.
2.3 Columbia
Colombia is also among the countries with the fastest-growing economies in Latin America, although its annual growth has currently slowed to 2.7 %. However, for the next two years growth is expected to reach 3.5 % again. In 2018, the country’s GDP was US$ 319 bn, while the per-capita income was US$ 6625. At the same time, the unemployment rate increased to 9.7 %. According to the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), Colombia’s hard coal production output (boiler and coking coal) declined by 7.5 % in 2018 from 91.1 Mta to 84.3 Mta, which puts it in fifth place on a global scale. In addition to coal, the country’s most important minerals are gold, silver, platinum and nickel. However, Colombia has not recently been in the top 10 places of the international ranking with any of these metals.
The coal industry in Colombia has long been dominated by foreign companies. Colombian coal meets the worldwide sulfur limits and is therefore popular everywhere, and in Europe particularly. The two major coal provinces are La Guajira and Cesar, which in 2018 accounted for a share of 92.5 % of the country’s 84.3 Mta hard coal production, after 91.1 Mta in 2017. Of the 84.3 Mta, 80 Mta were exported, 56 % of which went to Europe. Fig. 13 shows the proportion of export volumes accounted for by the most important companies in recent years. The market leaders are Cerrejón and Drummond with a most recent market share of 77 %. Cerrejón is a joint venture of Anglo American, BHP and Glencore International and operates the Cerrejón opencast mine in La Guajira. The US company Drummond owns the open-pit mines Mina Pribbenow and El Descanso near La Loma in the province of Cesar.
2.4 Mexico
Mexico’s GDP of US$ 1224 bn, equals about 2/3 of Brazil’s GDP. It corresponds to a per capita income of US$ 9180 for a population of 126.2 million. The country’s economic growth rate was 4.0 % in 2012, while the inflation rate was 3.8 %. Like Brazil and Chile, Mexico has a long mining tradition. It is rich in mineral resources such as gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead and molybdenum. In the case of silver, Mexico is in first place with its share of 22,6 % of the total global production. With gold it has a share of 3.3 %, putting it in 10th place, with copper 3.6 % and 9th place and with molybdenum 5 % and 5th place behind China, the USA, Chile and Peru. In 2018, Mexico’s mining industry generated 2.4 % of its GDP. Fig. 14 shows the proportions accounted for by the most important metals. Gold ranks first with 29.7 %, followed by copper (24.6 %), silver (14.8 %), zinc (8.9 %), iron ore (4.9 %) and molybdenum (3.2 %).
In 2018, Mexico produced 107.7 tonnes of gold (3.8 MOz) after 39 tonnes in 2006 and 95.3 tonnes in 2012 [4]. The 5 most important provinces, Sonata (34.0 %), Chihuahua (18.5 %), Guerrero (14.4 %), Zacatecas (13.0 %) and Durango (9.7 %) accounted for 89.6 % of the output. The 10 most important gold mines were responsible for almost 60 % of the production volume in 2018 (Fig. 15). Fresnillo’s La Herradura mine ranks 1st with 474 200 Oz. The average gold grade of its ore was 0.76 g/t. Some way behind follow Torex Gold’s Limon-Guajes mine, Goldcorp’s Penasquito and Agnico Eagle’s Pinos Altos (Fig. 16). After them come Leagold Mining’s Los Filos mine, Alamos Gold’s Mulatos, Fresnillo’s Noche Buena, Pan American Silver’s Dolores, Coeur Mining’s Palmarejo and Agnico Eagle’s La India. Up to 2024, there are about 20 new gold mines with a capacity of 1.23 MOz in the pipeline.
In 2018, Mexico’s mines extracted 5513 t of silver (194.5 MOz) after 2970 t in 2006 and 5045 t in 2012 [4]. Sonora Province was responsible for 81.3 % of the total mining output, while Zacatecas produced 6.3 %. Fig. 17 shows the distribution of the total output over the 10 most important silver mines. Fresnillo plc’s Saucito mine (Fig. 18) is the leading producer with its 19.8 million ounces (MOz), with a peak grade of 257 g of silver per t of ore. It is followed by Goldcorp’s Penasquito mine with 18.3 MOz and Fresnillo (15.1 MOz) and San Julián (14.6 MOz), which are two more Fresnillo mines. The other mines in the top 10 are Fortuna Silver’s San Jose, Pan American Silver’s La Coloracia, Coeur Mining’s Palmarejo, Fresnillo’s La Ciénega, Industrias Peñoles’ Tizapa and Minas de Bacis’ El Herrero. For realization by 2024, 15 new mine projects are being planned by companies such as Fresnillo, Industrias Peñoles, Endeavor Silver, Grupo México, Sunshine Silver and Almaden Minerals.
2.5 Peru
3 Prospects
Latin America is a trend region for the mining industry. No other region in the world has received more investment in recent years. There are certainly several reasons for this. One reason is that the mining industry has a high degree of planning security, which is due to stable economies and the relatively mining-friendly attitude of most governments in Latin America. Another reason is that the metal contents of the ores are above average compared to those elsewhere in the world, which means that companies can achieve relatively low operating costs for the metal production process. A consideration of the market figures of recent years indicates that the lowest point has probably been passed, particularly the low mark of 2016, although the improvements in the years 2018 and 2019 still cannot be called significant. However, as from 2020, the situation is likely to improve noticeably.