Mexico offers diversity of minerals

Mexico, with the oldest tradition of mining in Latin America, has become one of the most diversified mineral producers in the world, reports the U.S. Bureau of Mines.

In 1985, prior to the collapse of oil prices, the value of output for the mineral or extractive sector represented 13.4% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Of this share, 1.5% is attributed to metallic and industrial mineral output.

This production compares with 1950, when mining and petroleum output represented 4.9% of GDP, of which petroleum was 1.7%. In 1985, non-fuel minerals accounted for 3.5% of total industrial output.

The relative importance of minerals in the economy has increased because of expanded mining capacity and, more especially, the oil boom of the last decade such that today petroleum and natural gas production have become Mexico’s leading mineral industries

As a relatively newly industrialized country, Mexico has become a significant consumer of minerals. The wide range of mineral products consumed by industry and other sectors of the economy comes mostly from domestic resources. Some 20 non-fuel mineral products in limited quantities are primarily imported, such as abrasives, alumina, chromium, cobalt, nickel, phosphate rock and potash. In some cases, such as metallurgical coal, imports are necessary for blending with domestic supplies of lower quality. The abundance and diversity of Mexico’s mineral wealth has made the country largely self-sufficient in meeting essential high-volume mineral demand, with a surplus available for export in many cases.

The non-fuel minerals sector, as an earner of foreign exchange for Mexico, has been overshadowed by the petroleum sector since 1975, when the country became self-sufficient in crude oil and, subsequently, an important world exporter of its surplus oil output.

–From The Mineral Economy of Mexico, published by U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C.