Mining in Bolivia has been a dominant feature of the Bolivian economy as well as Bolivian politics since 1557. Colonial era silver mining in Bolivia, particularly in Potosí, played a critical role in the Spanish Empire and the global economy. Tin mining supplanted silver by the twentieth century and the central element of Bolivian mining, and wealthy tin barons played an important role in national politics until they were marginalized by the industry's nationalization into the Bolivian Mining Corporation (COMIBOL) that followed the 1952 revolution. Bolivian miners played a critical part to the country's organized labor movement from the 1940s to the 1980s.
By 1985, however, the production of every significant mineral in the country had failed to exceed the output registered in 1975. Moreover, the international tin market crashed in 1985. The mining sector in 1987 accounted for only 4 percent of GDP, 36 percent of exports, 2.5 percent of government revenues, and 2 percent of the labor force, compared with 8 percent of GDP, 65 percent of exports, 27 percent of government revenues, and about 6 percent of the labor force in 1977. Spurred by a massive increase in gold production, however, the mining sector rebounded in 1988, returning to the top of the nation's list of foreign exchange earners.
The crisis of 1985 prompted emergency economic measures by the government, including massive layoffs of miners. The twenty-first century has seen a recovery and expansion of the mining sector, and the government of Evo Morales has re-nationalized several facilities. However, mining in Bolivia is primarily in private hands, while the vast majority of miners work in cooperatives. Large, foreign owned mines such as Sumitomo's San Cristóbal mine also produce relatively large quantities of minerals. In 2010, 79,043 miners worked in the sector, producing $2.642 billion of mineral products.
In 2017, mining and quarrying activities accounted for 9% of the GDP. The mineral industry was estimated to have employed nearly 135,000 workers.
Structure of the mining industry The Ministry of Mining and Metallurgy is responsible for directing and developing the mining and metallurgical industries as well as implementation of policies and regulations for mining and metallurgical activities in the country.
The mining industry is organized into three main sectors: the government-owned sector, principally Comibol; the small mining cooperatives; and medium- and large-scale private enterprises. In 2013, private enterprises produced the largest share of minerals by mass and value. However, cooperative miners represent the vast majority of mining workers. 20052013SectorQuantity (fine metric tons)Value (millions of US$)WorkersQuantity (fine metric tons)Value (millions of US$)WorkersState0011727,0002927,902Private182,0003475,450581.000 2,1128,110Cooperative108,00028350,150124,000 982119,340Total290,000630732,0003,386135,352Source: President Evo Morales Ayma, Informe de Gestión 2013, p. 122, 138.
Comibol and the state sector Corporación Minera de Bolivia (Comibol), created in 1952 by the nationalization of the country's tin mines, was a huge multi-mineral corporation controlled by organized labor and the second largest tin enterprise in the world, until it was decentralized into five semi-autonomous mining enterprises in 1986. In addition to operating twenty-one mining companies, several spare-parts factories, various electricity plants, farms, a railroad, and other agencies, Comibol also provided schooling for over 60,000 children, housing for mining families, health clinics, and popular subsidized commissaries called pulperías. By 1986 Comibol employed more non-miners than miners.
Observers severely criticized Comibol's mining policies. Comibol took fifteen years to bring tin production to its prerevolutionary levels. In addition, Comibol failed to invest sufficiently in mining technology and existing mines, and it proved unable to open new mines. Indeed, except for the mid-1960s Comibol did not engage in exploration. In terms of administration, worker control eclipsed even technical and detailed administrative decisions.
The decentralization of Comibol under the Rehabilitation Plan reduced the company's payroll from 27,000 employees to under 7,000 in less than a year. All of Comibol's mines, previously responsible for the bulk of mining output, were shut down from September 1986 to May 1987 to examine the economic feasibility of each mine; some never reopened. Comibol's mining and service companies were restructured into five autonomous mining subsidiaries (in Oruro, La Paz, Potosí, Quechusa and Oriente), and two autonomous smelting companies (the Vinto Smelting Company and the still unopened Karachipampa smelter in Potosí), or they were transferred to ministries such as the Ministry of Social Services and Public Health or the Ministry of Education and Culture. The bureaucracy also underwent major administrative changes.
The government of Evo Morales re-nationalized the cooperative mines at Huanuni (in 2007) and the smelting facilities in Vinto (in February 2007) and Karachipampa (in January 2011).
Private mining companies For the first time since 1952, Comibol produced less minerals than the rest of the mining sector in 1987. The medium-scale miners consisted of Bolivian and foreign mining companies in the private sector that were involved in the production of virtually every mineral, especially silver, zinc, antimony, lead, cadmium, tungsten, gold, and tin. Nevertheless, the collapse of tin and the decline in other commodity prices in the mid-1980s also severely affected the private mining sector. Nineteen mining companies with 4,020 employees constituted the National Association of Medium Miners (Asociación de Minería Mediana) in 1987, compared with twenty-eight companies and 8,000 workers in 1985. Only 615 mines in 1987 were part of the National Chamber of Mining (Cámara Nacional de Minería), the equivalent of a small miners association, compared with 6,300 mines and 23,000 workers before the crash. Traditionally, small miners had to market their mining output through the Mining Bank of Bolivia (Banco Minera de Bolivia—Bamin), which was also restructured after 1985 into a joint venture of private and public interests. Beginning in 1987, small miners no longer had to sell their exports through Bamin, a policy shift that boosted that group's output and foreign sales.
Mining cooperatives Mining cooperatives and other miscellaneous miners made up the rest of the producers in the mining sector, although their output was aggregated with that of the small mining sector. The National Federation of Mining Cooperatives of Bolivia (Federación Nacional de Cooperativas Mineras de Bolivia) served as an umbrella organization for the country's 434 mining cooperatives, 82 percent of which mined gold. Only a few of these groups, however, were officially registered with the National Institute of Cooperatives (Instituto Nacional para Cooperativas). Most cooperatives were small and consisted of individual miners organized by mine or specific mineral and using very little technology.
Production In 2019, the country was the 8th largest world producer of silver;USGS Silver Production Statistics 4th largest world producer of boron;USGS Boron Production Statistics 5th largest world producer of antimony;USGS Antimony Production Statistics 5th largest world producer of tin;USGS Tin Production Statistics 6th largest world producer of tungsten;USGS Tungsten Production Statistics 7th largest producer of zinc,USGS ZincProduction Statistics and the 8th largest producer of lead.USGS Lead Production Statistics
Tin production
Bolivia's mines had produced cassiterite, the chief source of tin, since 1861. Although long among the world's leading tin producers and exporters, the industry faced numerous and complicated structural problems by the early 1980s: the highest cost underground mines and smelters in the world; inaccessibility of the ores because of high altitudes and poor infrastructure; narrow, deep veins found in hard rock; complex tin ores that had to be specially processed to extract tin, antimony, lead, and other ores; depletion of high-grade ores; almost continual labor unrest; deplorable conditions for miners; extensive mineral theft or juqueo; poor macroeconomic conditions; lack of foreign exchange for needed imports; unclear mining policies; few export incentives; and decreasing international demand for tin. Between 1978 and 1985, Bolivia fell from the second to the fifth position among tin producers.
In the late 1980s, however, tin still accounted for a third of all Bolivian mineral exports because of the strong performance by the medium and small mining sectors. The largest tin-mining company in the private sector was Estalsa Boliviana, which dredged alluvial tin deposits in the Antequera River in northeastern Potosí Department. The Mining Company of Oruro operated the country's richest tin mine at Huanuni. The country's tin reserves in 1988 were estimated at 453,700 tons, of which 250,000 tons were found in medium-sized mines, 143,700 tons in Comibol mines, and 60,000 tons in small mines. In the late 1980s, tin was exported mainly in concentrates for refining abroad. Eighty percent of all exports went to the European Economic Community and the United States, with the balance going to various Latin American countries and Czechoslovakia.
Bolivia was a founding member of the International Tin Council (ITC), a body of twenty-two consumer and producer countries that since 1930 had attempted to regulate tin markets through buffer stocks. Bolivia, however, did not sign the ITC's International Tin Agreements in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1983 Bolivia joined the newly formed Association of Tin Producing Countries, which attempted—unsuccessfully—to control tin prices through a cartel approach to commodity regulation. After a period of decline, tin prices rebounded in the late 1980s. Government policies since the early 1970s had sought to expand the percentage of metallic or refined tin exports that offered greater returns. As a result, smelting increased during the 1970s, but in the 1980s the excessive costs of the nation's highly underutilized smelting operations contributed to the decision to restructure Comibol.
During the presidency of Evo Morales, Bolivia increased government control over and investment in the tin sector. At the Huanuni mines, violent clashes among cooperative miners led to nationalization of the facility in 2007. The government also nationalized the Vinto smelter citing issues of corruption by private owner Glencore in February 2007. The still-unopened Karachipampa was nationalized in 2011 following the regional protest in Potosí's demand for its operation and the failure of foreign investors to accomplish this. In July 2011, the Chinese firm Vicstar Union Engineering (a joint venture of Shenzhen Vicstar Import and Export Co. and Yantai Design and Research Engineering Co. Ltd of the Shandong Gold Group) won a contract to build a new smelter for Comibol at Huanuni.
Other minerals
Silver and related minerals