page_title: Latin American economy
section_title: Mining and petroleum
hierarchical_section_title: Latin American economy / Sectors by industry / Mining and petroleum
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Cerro Ricco bij Potosi, Bolivia.
context_page_description: Latin America as a region has multiple nation-states, with varying levels of economic complexity. The Latin American economy is an export-based economy consisting of individual countries in the geographical regions of North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. The socioeconomic patterns of what is now called Latin America were set in the colonial era when the region was controlled by the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Up until independence in the early nineteenth century, colonial Latin American regional economies thrived and worked things out. Many parts of the region had favorable factor endowments of deposits of precious metals, mainly silver, or tropical climatic conditions and locations near coasts that allowed for the development of cane sugar plantations. In the nineteenth century following independence, many economies of Latin America declined. In the late nineteenth century, much of Latin America was integrated into the world economy as an exporter of commodities.
context_section_description: Mining for precious metals dates to the prehispanic period in Latin America and was the economic driver for the throughout the colonial period in Spanish America and in the eighteenth century in Brazil. Extraction of minerals and petroleum dominate certain countries' economies rather than agriculture, especially Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, and Bolivia.In general, mining sites had only a local environmental impact, using relatively low-energy technology such as hand tools, but modern mining technologies use machinery and create open pits mines rather than tunnels, with considerable environmental impact. These enterprises are large scale industrial enterprises requiring considerable capital investment. An exception to this model is gold mining in river systems, especially the Amazon, where poor miners extract gold from auriferous sands, and somewhat larger scale enterprises dredge the sands. Toxic chemicals are used in mine processing, including mercury and arsenic. Discharge of chemical waste into water systems contaminate them. Current mining practices create problems in all stages of production, from extraction to finished product.
  Recent mining of lithium in the Northwest of Argentina and Bolivia, as well as the discovery of new deposits are important since lithium is a key component in batteries to power electronics, such as mobile phones, electric cars, and electricity grids. Argentina's resources are now being mined by a joint Australian-Japanese-Argentina venture. Chile has been a major producer for decades, from the Atacama salt flat.
  Latin America produces 45% of the world's copper, 50% of the world's silver, 26% of the world's molybdenum, and 21% of the world's zinc.
  Half of the participants in a BNAmerica's mining survey believe that political and legal uncertainty will slow mining investment in Latin America in 2017. However, individual countries have implemented changes that could improve conditions for mining companies in 2017. Costs related to labor, energy, and supplies have increased for Latin American mining companies. Thus, many companies are focused on reducing costs and improving efficiency to achieve growth. Some companies are looking towards consolidation, automation, and owner-operated mines to lessen the impacts of rising costs.
caption: Cerro Rico, Potosi, Bolivia, still a major silver mine
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