This last day of 2012 has a good feel to it, and when thinking of Bolivia I see some harbingers of good for 2013. So it is appropriate to end this year with an upbeat article about the famous chef Claus Meyer, who is in Bolivia using local ingredients to create a new style. Appropriate - as this country has conrtibuted so much gastronomically to the world - what with the potato and so many other members of the Solanaceous family - Brazil nuts (see post on this blog about them, most are actually grown in Bolivia), etc.
Hopefully when I make my trip to Bolivia Chef Meyer's eatery will be up and running and I can write more from first hand experience - for now, here is the New York Times article:
High Ambition and Visions of Andean Haute Cuisine
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: November 6, 2012
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia has not been kind to foreigners trying to import revolution. The attempt by the Argentine-born Che Guevara to set off a peasant revolt here ended badly. The verdict is still out on the latest foreigner to arrive in this impoverished nation trying to stir things up.
The Danish celebrity chef Claus Meyer is opening a restaurant in La Paz, hoping to start a Bolivian food movement.
He is a chef, not a Che.
Claus Meyer, a Danish celebrity chef and restaurant entrepreneur, is one of the owners of Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant that is a darling of food critics for its mix of locavore purism and avant-garde cooking methods. Restaurant magazine, a trade journal, ranks it the best restaurant in the world.
Now Mr. Meyer is building a restaurant here, an experiment in Andean haute cuisine that comes with hefty side orders of revolution and high ambition.
Mr. Meyer, who came to Bolivia for the first time last year and has been back three times, described the restaurant, Gustu, due to open in January, as much more than a place to get a fancy meal in the continent’s poorest country. He and his followers describe it as the start of a Bolivian food movement that will rediscover local ingredients like llama meat, chuños (potatoes dehydrated high in the Andes) and coca, the plant that is used to make cocaine but that has long been used here as a mild stimulant, a tea and a medicinal herb.
Gustu’s mission will be to teach Bolivians how to eat in healthier ways, spur economic growth, tourism and exports, support local farmers and turn Bolivian cuisine into the next world food sensation. If all goes well, Mr. Meyer said in a telephone call from Copenhagen, the restaurant will use food “to change the destiny of a country.”
The restaurant, being built in the upscale Calacoto neighborhood, hardly looks like a crucible of revolution. On a recent day, workers installed insulation in the roof. The kitchen was stacked with bags of concrete mix and plaster.
Michelangelo Cestari, one of the restaurant’s head chefs, said it would be the most advanced restaurant in the country, full of high-tech gadgets of molecular gastronomy that atomize, froth and otherwise transform foods.
The restaurant will serve only ingredients grown or created in Bolivia. Wines will come from the country’s handful of wineries and liquor will be limited largely to singani, a local grape brandy.
Mr. Cestari pointed to a tall wall where wines will be stored and displayed, although he said there might not be enough Bolivian labels to fill it at first. The idea, he said, is to help create demand for local products.
Mr. Cestari, a pastry chef, is from Venezuela and has worked for years in fine restaurants in Europe. So has his fellow head chef, Kamilla Seidler, who is Danish. The only Bolivian among the restaurant’s top cooks is Christian Gómez, the senior sous chef, who worked for years in Spain.
They are keenly aware of the risk of being seen as outsiders. “Perhaps it’s arrogant to think we can come here to develop a gastronomy,” Mr. Cestari said, “but we hope we can push something.”
He said the menu would include items inspired by Bolivian dishes, like a lamb on a cross, made by splaying a whole lamb on an iron cross and cooking it slowly over a smoky fire; or calapurca, a soup heated by placing a hot rock in the bowl.
Rather than simply serving typical Bolivian food done well, however, the kitchen will use the method favored by Mr. Meyer in Denmark of focusing on a few basic ingredients and trying to draw out their essence.
“We don’t want to do French food or fusion or nouvelle,” Mr. Gómez said. “We want to do something new with a Bolivian identity.”
Mr. Cestari said that the average dinner tab would be $50 to $60 a person, which he said is on par with other top restaurants here but still prompted several Bolivians to gasp. The minimum wage here is about $143 a month.
Mr. Meyer will address that contradiction soon by opening a bistro and bakery where people can eat more economically. And he said that all profits from the restaurant would go to charitable projects in Bolivia, which he chose partly because it was a developing country with a wide range of unique local ingredients.
The project also includes a cooking school for young Bolivians from poor families, which will provide a trained work force for the restaurant and, Mr. Meyer hopes, create a new generation of experimentally minded chefs.
On a recent morning, students at the school, which is run out of an ornate mansion in central La Paz, buzzed around a cramped kitchen, making pork chops and yucca fries. Then some of them piled into a van for a field trip to a nearby market.
Ms. Seidler, one of the head chefs, said that because she arrived in Bolivia only recently she often finds herself learning from her students. At a market stall, Ms. Seidler and a student, Belén Soria, pored over types of offal. Ms. Soria explained how indigenous women prepared a mixture of fried tripe and potatoes that they sell from carts at night.
Ms. Soria, 24, said she grew up helping her grandmother cook and sell api, a sweet corn gruel that is a workingperson’s inexpensive morning staple.
Everyone has their own knowledge, things their grandparents told them,” she said. But she has less time to help her grandmother now that she is focusing on her studies.
“We’re all curious to prepare new things, with our own stamp,” Ms. Soria said. “Original things.”
Monday, December 31, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
27 December New York Times article
In today's New York Times - what is finally a focused and objective article on Bolivia, though, sadly, about cocaine which is not what Bolivia is about; one would hope that the NYT would spend time writing about the birdlife, orchids, indigenous festivals, social improvements under the MAS government, chocolate farming, mineral resources, coffee production - the list of positive things is endless, why all the attention on some stupid drug that people do to make themselves think they are cool?
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Coca Licensing Is a Weapon in Bolivia’s Drug War
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Augustine Calicho, 45, separating the seeds from dried coca leaves in Villa Tunari in the Chapare region of Bolivia. More Photos »
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: December 26, 2012
TODOS SANTOS, Bolivia — There is nothing clandestine about Julián Rojas’s coca plot, which is tucked deep within acres of banana groves. It has been mapped with satellite imagery, cataloged in a government database, cross-referenced with his personal information and checked and rechecked by the local coca growers’ union. The same goes for the plots worked by Mr. Rojas’s neighbors and thousands of other farmers in this torrid region east of the Andes who are licensed by the Bolivian government to grow coca, the plant used to make cocaine.
Multimedia
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
Meri Pintas, 30, center, harvesting coca leaves with her children in the Yungas region of Bolivia. Thousands of legal coca patches are intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses. More Photos »
Meridith Kohut for The New York Times
A counternarcotics agent explained the eradication process to coca growers whose patch was two rows over the legal limit. More Photos »
President Evo Morales, who first came to prominence as a leader of coca growers, kicked out the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009. That ouster, together with events like the arrest last year of the former head of the Bolivian anti-narcotics police on trafficking charges, led Washington to conclude that Bolivia was not meeting its global obligations to fight narcotics.
But despite the rift with the United States, Bolivia, the world’s third-largest cocaine producer, has advanced its own unorthodox approach toward controlling the growing of coca, which veers markedly from the wider war on drugs and includes high-tech monitoring of thousands of legal coca patches intended to produce coca leaf for traditional uses.
To the surprise of many, this experiment has now led to a significant drop in coca plantings in Mr. Morales’s Bolivia, an accomplishment that has largely occurred without the murders and other violence that have become the bloody byproduct of American-led measures to control trafficking in Colombia, Mexico and other parts of the region.
Yet there are also worrisome signs that such gains are being undercut as traffickers use more efficient methods to produce cocaine and outmaneuver Bolivian law enforcement to keep drugs flowing out of the country.
In one key sign of progress in Bolivia’s approach toward coca, the total acres planted with coca dropped 12 to 13 percent last year, according to separate reports by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. At the same time, the Bolivian government stepped up efforts to rip out unauthorized coca plantings and reported an increase in seizures of cocaine and cocaine base.
“It’s fascinating to look at a country that kicked out the United States ambassador and the D.E.A., and the expectation on the part of the United States is that drug war efforts would fall apart,” said Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network, a Bolivian research group. Instead, she said, Bolivia’s approach is “showing results.”
Still, there is skepticism. “Our perspective is they’ve made real advances, and they’re a long way from where we’d like to see them,” said Larry Memmott, chargé d’affaires of the American Embassy in La Paz. “In terms of law enforcement, a lot remains to be done.”
Although Bolivia outlaws cocaine, it permits the growing of coca for traditional uses. Bolivians chew coca leaf as a mild stimulant and use it as a medicine, as a tea and, particularly among the majority indigenous population, in religious rituals.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Rojas placed a few dried leaves into his mouth and watched the sun set over his coca field, slightly less than two-fifths of an acre, the maximum allowed per farmer here in this region, known as the Chapare.
“This is a way to keep it under control,” he said, spitting a stream of green juice. “Everyone should have the same amount.”
Mr. Rojas is a face of a changing region. He makes far more money growing bananas for export on about 74 acres than he does growing coca. But he has no intention of giving up his tiny coca plot. “What happens if a disease attacks the bananas?” he asked. “Then we still have the coca to save us.”
The Bolivian government has persuaded growers that by limiting the amount of plantings, coca prices will remain high. And it has largely focused eradication efforts, of the kind that once spurred strong popular resistance, outside the areas controlled by growers’ unions, like in national parks.
The registration of thousands of Chapare growers, completed this year, is part of an enforcement system that relies on growers to police one another. If registered growers are found to have plantings above the maximum allowed, soldiers are called in to remove the excess. If growers violate the limit a second time, their entire crop is cut down and they lose the right to grow coca.
Growers’ unions can also be punished if there are multiple violations among their members.
“We have to be constantly vigilant,” said Nelson Sejas, a Chapare grower who was part of a team that checked coca plots to make sure they did not exceed the limit.
But there is still plenty of cheating. Officials say they are going over the registry of about 43,000 Chapare growers to find those who may have multiple plots or who may violate other rules.
“The results speak for themselves,” said Carlos Romero, the minister of government. “We have demonstrated that you can objectively do eradication work without violating human rights, without polemicizing the topic and with clear results.”
He said that the government was on pace to eradicate more acres of coca this year than it did last year, without the violence of years past. A government report said 60 people were killed and more than 700 were wounded in the Chapare from 1998 to 2002 in violence related to eradication.
But even as Bolivia shows progress, grave concerns remain.
The White House drug office estimated that despite the decrease in total coca acreage last year, the amount of cocaine that could potentially be produced from the coca grown in Bolivia jumped by more than a quarter. That is because a large amount of recent plantings began to mature and reach higher yields; new plantings with higher yields replaced older, less productive fields; and traffickers switched to more efficient processing methods.
Yet the glaring paradox of Bolivia’s monitoring program is that vast amounts of the legally grown coca ultimately wind up in the hands of drug traffickers and are converted into cocaine and other drugs. Most of those drugs go to Brazil, considered the world’s second-largest cocaine market. Virtually no Bolivian cocaine ends up in the United States.
César Guedes, the representative in Bolivia of the United Nations drugs office, said that roughly half of the country’s coca acreage produces coca that goes to the drug trade. By some estimates, more than 90 percent of the coca in Chapare, one of two main producing regions, goes to drugs.
Two Chapare farmers explained that they generally sell one 50-pound bag of coca leaf from each harvest to the government-regulated market. The rest, often 200 pounds or more, is sold to buyers who work with traffickers and pay a premium over the government-authorized price. One of the growers said he recently delivered coca leaf directly to a lab where it would be turned into drugs.
The central question is how much coca is needed to supply traditional needs. Current government policy permits about 50,000 acres of legal coca plantings, although the actual area in cultivation is much higher. The United Nations estimated there were 67,000 acres of coca last year.
Whatever the exact figure, most analysts agree that far more is produced than is needed to supply the traditional market.
The European Union financed a study several years ago to estimate how much coca was needed for traditional uses, but the Bolivian government has refused to release it, saying that more research is needed.
The push to reduce coca acreage comes as the Morales government is lobbying other countries to amend a United Nations convention on narcotics to recognize the legality of traditional uses of coca leaf in Bolivia. A decision is expected in January.
On a recent morning just after dawn, a squad of uniformed soldiers used machetes to cut down a plot of coca plants near the town of Ivirgarzama.
They had come to chop down an old coca patch that had passed its prime and measure a replacement plot planted by the farmer. The soldiers determined that the new plot was slightly over the limit and removed about two rows of plants before going on their way.
“Before, there was more tension, more conflict, more people injured,” Lt. Col. Willy Pozo said. “This is no longer a war.”
Friday, December 21, 2012
Jacob Ostreicher out on bail in Santa Cruz
While still not free, Jacob Ostreicher got a Chanukah present from the Bolivian government: he was allowed out on bail. There are complications to his case, which is not being helped by the presence of US politicians, journalists and out of work actors who are known to punch women. No need to name names.
Jacob is caught in this circus, an innocent victim of drug dealers and the GOP.
We continue to support his release, and to support the MAS government in Bolivia as it tries to clarify what is going on.
Jacob is caught in this circus, an innocent victim of drug dealers and the GOP.
We continue to support his release, and to support the MAS government in Bolivia as it tries to clarify what is going on.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Fernando Rivera and GOP collaborators arrested in Bolivia
Jacob Ostreicher remains in jail in Bolivia, after having been used unwittingly as a pawn of the GOP in America - as I posted on 8 August at this site. Secret talks failed, as the GOP did not know how to deal with the situation, got scared after talk about this leading to Mitt Romney, and eventually lost interest in Jacob's case; they also knew by about mid-September that they were going to lose the elections, and Jacob was no longer needed. So he got left to the dishonest folks in Bolivia who did not mind making a bigger diplomatic mess of it than it was - and the formerly unnamed official, Fernando Rivera, to whom I alluded on this site, saw his only chance to make some dinero was to extort Jacob or take his assets. The Bolivian govnerment, headed by Evo Morales, sensed something was wrong, and arrested Rivera and five of his partners-in-crime. They are now in jail, but so is Ostreicher, and it is not clear what the next move is.
Ironically, there are still parties who want to use this against MAS and the Morales government, which is only trying to do the right thing, though they do not have all the facts.
But we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully Ostreicher will be set free and the MAS government will have more useful information about the GOP and its antics.
Ironically, there are still parties who want to use this against MAS and the Morales government, which is only trying to do the right thing, though they do not have all the facts.
But we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully Ostreicher will be set free and the MAS government will have more useful information about the GOP and its antics.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
JACOB OSTREICHER IN PRISON IN SANTA CRUZ
Since Spring of 2011, a New York businessman has been in 'la jaula'- that is, prison, in Bolivia -
and it is a strange case indeed; contrary to popular thought, it is not local corruption
that wants to extort money from the family - there are other forces keeping him from
getting a fair trial. He is BTW innocent of the money laundering charges that got attached to him after he bought land to grow rice from a Colombian drug dealer, now knowing what his sellor's past was. He did in fact grow rice and employ 200 people. So what's this about?
It all has to do with the US GOP, which has pulled strings, or rather a small power group inside the GOP, to keep the trial delayed so that he can be sprung mid October to help the hapless GOP candidates.
But it is not quite working, and most likely Jacob will stay in jail. The Bolivian government is also being set up in this, there are GOP members who want to use it against Evo Morales, who is not directly involved.
A top official I will leave unnamed in Bolivia is, but not without ties to shadowy figures who go in and out of the US Embassy.
I am posting this here to start to document the fraud. If the Bolivian government knew exactly what was happening, he would be set free ASAP, but they are being set up and lied to.
So we'll see.
Since Spring of 2011, a New York businessman has been in 'la jaula'- that is, prison, in Bolivia -
and it is a strange case indeed; contrary to popular thought, it is not local corruption
that wants to extort money from the family - there are other forces keeping him from
getting a fair trial. He is BTW innocent of the money laundering charges that got attached to him after he bought land to grow rice from a Colombian drug dealer, now knowing what his sellor's past was. He did in fact grow rice and employ 200 people. So what's this about?
It all has to do with the US GOP, which has pulled strings, or rather a small power group inside the GOP, to keep the trial delayed so that he can be sprung mid October to help the hapless GOP candidates.
But it is not quite working, and most likely Jacob will stay in jail. The Bolivian government is also being set up in this, there are GOP members who want to use it against Evo Morales, who is not directly involved.
A top official I will leave unnamed in Bolivia is, but not without ties to shadowy figures who go in and out of the US Embassy.
I am posting this here to start to document the fraud. If the Bolivian government knew exactly what was happening, he would be set free ASAP, but they are being set up and lied to.
So we'll see.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Mineral Resources in Bolivia
A history of Bolivian mining with a list of its most important mineral resources
From 1557 to 1985, mining dominated the Bolivian economy. By 1987 mining accounted for only 4 percent of GDP, 36 percent of exports, and 2.5 percent of government revenues. Spurred by a massive increase in gold production, the mining sector rebounded in 1988, returning to the top of the nation's list of foreign exchange earners. Tin and silver had been the major products in this sector, making fortunes for a few select families who saw fit to take their wealth out of the country, or for foreign companies with little regard for the native workers. This was much a factor in Bolivia's struggle for independence from Spain. It was not until 1952 that an agency that answered to the governemnt, at least partly, was established; Comibol, which was decentralised into five semiautonomous mining enterprises in 1986. This was a huge multimineral corporation controlled by unions and was the second largest tin enterprise in the world. It operated 21 mining companies, spare-parts factories, electricity plants, farms, a railroad, and other agencies. The decentralisation 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 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, Quechusa, Potosí, 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. Medium miners, small miners, cooperatives, and other producers, which made up the rest of the mining sector, produced more minerals in 1987 than Comibol. The medium 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.
Gold Gold prospecting in the country's rivers and mines was brisk in the late 1980s. Because of Bolivia's vast territory and the high value of gold, contraband gold accounted for approximately 80 percent of exports. Official gold exports were approximately five tons in 1988, up sharply from less than one ton in 1985. In order to capture gold as a reserve for the Central Bank, in 1988 the government offered a 5 percent bonus over the international price of gold on local sales to the Central Bank. Gold was mined almost exclusively by over 300 cooperatives throughout the country, along with about 10,000 prospectors. A large percentage of the cooperatives worked in Tipuani, Guanay, Mapiri, Huayti, and Teoponte in a 21,000-hectare region set aside for gold digging and located 120 kilometers north of La Paz. Mining cooperatives in the late 1980s had requested an additional 53,000 hectares from the government for gold prospecting. Others panned for their fortunes in remote villages like Araras along the Brazilian border in Beni. Small-scale operations were very traditional and wasteful. Analysts predicted that more commercial production, such as the dredging of alluvial deposits, would maximize gold output. A few medium-sized mining operations, as well as the Armed Forces National Development Corporation (Corporación de las Fuerzas Armadas para el Desarrollo Nacional--Cofadena) became involved in the gold rush in the 1980s. Government policy favored augmenting gold reserves as a means of leveraging more external finance for development projects. Bolivia's gold production has been steadily rising since 1998. Gold production in the first 6 months of 2003 was estimated at 4 600 t a 18.6% increase from 2002. Production is still dominated by the Into Raymi gold mine that is responsible for over 75% of Bolivia’s production. The mine is situated at Kori Kollo on the Altiplano north of Oruro with Newmont Mining owning 88% and Zeland Mines SA (12%) of the project. The mine began production in 1993 and produced 306 000 oz gold in 2001. However, reserves at the mine are rapidly being exhausted and are currently estimated at 700 000 oz.
Through a local subsidiary, Empresa Minera Paititi, Orvana Minerals has purchased a gold mining concession and related equipment from Comsur. The Don Mario gold deposit is located in eastern Bolivia and has mineable reserves estimated at containing 1.17 Mt grading 10.24 g/t gold for 386,000 oz gold.
Bolivia has several smaller scale gold projects currently undergoing feasibility studies by several foreign companies. Apart from hard rock gold finds, Bolivia has several high grade alluvial gold fields. The largest and highest grade fields are located on the Challana, the Kaka, the Mapirí, and the Tipuani river valleys in northern part of La Paz. Golden Eagle Bolivia are currently evaluating the Tipuani region where the company has secured mining rights over 74 000 acres. The Araras area near the border with Brazil has also been identified as prospective for alluvial gold, in particular the Madera and the Madre de Dios Rivers. More gold as also been discovered this year, along with much silver (see below) at Malku Khota.
Silver Three centuries after being the world's largest producer of silver, Bolivia still produced 225 tons of silver in 1988, as compared with about 140 tons in 1987. Recent finds, such as the one in 2010 by the South American Silver Company at Malku Khota, which is known to be one of the world's largest undeveloped silver resources, will increase mining activity.
Potassium Bolivia also has approximately 110 million tons of potassium, much of which is mixed in with the lithium (see below).
Lithium The lithium and potassium deposits located in the brines of the southern Altiplano's Uyuni saltpan are estimated to be the largest of their kind in the world. The United States Geological Survey, the Bolivian Geological Survey (Servicio Geológico de Bolivia), and others discovered large reserves of lithium in 1976. By 1985 Bolivia's National Congress had made lithium extraction a national priority and created the Industrial Complex of the of Uyuni Saltpan (Complejo Industrial de los Recursos Evaporíticos del Salar de Uyuni) to explore and market lithium. Because the extraction of lithium is an expensive, technically complex process, the government sought bids for some foreign investment in lithium in the late 1980s.
Presently, Bolivia is believed to have over 50% of the world’s supply, and bids are being accepted for mining, with the proviso that lithium batteries be developed in Bolivia.
Manganese The Mutun reserves are located in Bolivia's German Busch province in Santa Cruz, and extend into Brazil. They contain an estimated 10bn tons of manganese. Bolivia's government may seek an agreement with Brazil, similar to the recent gas pipeline contract between the countries, to develop the reserves.
Lead The lead and silver Karachipampa facility in Potosí was the nation's largest smelter. Although the authorities considered lead a minor metal, production increased from 9,000 tons in 1987 to 11,000 tons in 1988.
Tin Bolivia's mines had produced cassiterite, the chief source of tin, since 1861. By the mid-twentieth century, four famlies controlled all or most of the tin, the most prominent being the Patino clan. 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.
Bismuth Reserves were estimated at 4,100 tons, and production in 1987 reached two-thirds of a ton entirely by small miners. Bolivia, the site of the International Bismuth Institute, was once the sole producer of bismuth in the world. One of the applications of bismuth is in the making of high grade, long lasting paints, such as bismuth yellow.
Uranium The last mine closed in 1974. The government has set aside $500,000 for research into continuing mining in the future, but there is no date set as yet.
Tungsten Bolivia was also the leading producer of tungsten among market economies. But the dramatic decline in tungsten prices in the 1980s severely hurt production, despite the fact that reserves stood at 60,000 tons. Medium and small producers accounted for over 80 percent of the country's tungsten production in the late 1980s. The International Mining Company's Chojilla mine was the source of most tungsten output. Tungsten production sank from 2,300 tons in 1984 to barely more than 800 tons in 1987 because of falling international prices. Tungsten was sold to West European, East European, and Latin American countries, as well as to the United States.
Zinc This is Bolivia's leading export from the mines. Zinc output also rose in the late 1980s from roughly 39,000 tons in 1987 to over 53,000 tons in 1988, compared with 47,000 tons in 1975. Nearly all zinc was exported. In 1987 the government declared the construction of a new zinc refinery in Potosí a national priority.
Present plans for zinc mining include a $500 million investment in two new plants, to be located in Potosi and Oruro, with production expected to be 200 tons per year. Exports stand at 429 tons (2009), up from 385 the previous year. The 2009 production netted a profit of $685 million.
Magnesium Unknown amounts of magnesium are found in association with lithium. Boron 3.2 tons of boron are known to exist.
Antimony Bolivia mined about a fifth of the world's antimony in the late 1980s and was the leading producer among market economies. Private companies were responsible for all antimony production. The largest output came from the United Mining Company (Empresa Minera Unificada), which controlled the two largest antimony mines, located at Chilcobija and Caracota, both in Potosí Department. Medium and small miners generated an average of 9,500 tons of antimony a year in the mid-to late-1980s, all of which was exported. Antimony, a strategic mineral used in flame-proofing compounds and semiconductors, was exported in concentrates, trioxides, and alloys to all regions of the world, with most sales going to Britain and Brazil. Antimony reserves in 1988 stood at 350,000 tons.
Deposits also exist in Oruro, in western Bolivia, where Glencore, a Swiss firm, had contracts to mine. However, after it failed to invest, and was found to be dismantling the smelter, Mining Minister Jose Pimentel traveled to Oruro to carry out the legal steps necessary for state-owned Empresa Metalurgica Vinto to take control of the smelter.
Iron After years of planning, the Mutún iron mine was scheduled to open its first of two plants in 1989. The Mutún mine, the sole responsibility of the Mining Company of the Oriente, was expected to yield 592,000 tons of iron in its first five years of operation, with an estimated total of 40 billion tons of ore. The prospects for the steel industry, which was controlled by Bolivian Iron and Steel (Unidad Promotora de La Siderurgia Boliviana, formerly known as Siderúrgica Boliviana), however, were bleak. After more than a decade of planning a national steel plant, Bolivia was still unable to obtain financing for such a project, especially given international overcapacity in steel. The possibility of a national steel plant appeared unlikely at the end of the 1980s.
Recent contracts with Jindhal Steel of India came to a halt after Jindhal failed to comply with dealines in the contract. Bolivia has the largest supply of iron in the world, albeit of a medium grade, some mixed with sulfur compounds.
Cadmium Reserves exist in western Bolivia, often mixed with sulfur compounds.
Chromium Like cadmium, it is mined in the west, where it is mixed with sulfur compounds. Neither is mined presently in any great quantities if at all; oxides of both are used in quality artists' paints.
From 1557 to 1985, mining dominated the Bolivian economy. By 1987 mining accounted for only 4 percent of GDP, 36 percent of exports, and 2.5 percent of government revenues. Spurred by a massive increase in gold production, the mining sector rebounded in 1988, returning to the top of the nation's list of foreign exchange earners. Tin and silver had been the major products in this sector, making fortunes for a few select families who saw fit to take their wealth out of the country, or for foreign companies with little regard for the native workers. This was much a factor in Bolivia's struggle for independence from Spain. It was not until 1952 that an agency that answered to the governemnt, at least partly, was established; Comibol, which was decentralised into five semiautonomous mining enterprises in 1986. This was a huge multimineral corporation controlled by unions and was the second largest tin enterprise in the world. It operated 21 mining companies, spare-parts factories, electricity plants, farms, a railroad, and other agencies. The decentralisation 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 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, Quechusa, Potosí, 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. Medium miners, small miners, cooperatives, and other producers, which made up the rest of the mining sector, produced more minerals in 1987 than Comibol. The medium 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.
Gold Gold prospecting in the country's rivers and mines was brisk in the late 1980s. Because of Bolivia's vast territory and the high value of gold, contraband gold accounted for approximately 80 percent of exports. Official gold exports were approximately five tons in 1988, up sharply from less than one ton in 1985. In order to capture gold as a reserve for the Central Bank, in 1988 the government offered a 5 percent bonus over the international price of gold on local sales to the Central Bank. Gold was mined almost exclusively by over 300 cooperatives throughout the country, along with about 10,000 prospectors. A large percentage of the cooperatives worked in Tipuani, Guanay, Mapiri, Huayti, and Teoponte in a 21,000-hectare region set aside for gold digging and located 120 kilometers north of La Paz. Mining cooperatives in the late 1980s had requested an additional 53,000 hectares from the government for gold prospecting. Others panned for their fortunes in remote villages like Araras along the Brazilian border in Beni. Small-scale operations were very traditional and wasteful. Analysts predicted that more commercial production, such as the dredging of alluvial deposits, would maximize gold output. A few medium-sized mining operations, as well as the Armed Forces National Development Corporation (Corporación de las Fuerzas Armadas para el Desarrollo Nacional--Cofadena) became involved in the gold rush in the 1980s. Government policy favored augmenting gold reserves as a means of leveraging more external finance for development projects. Bolivia's gold production has been steadily rising since 1998. Gold production in the first 6 months of 2003 was estimated at 4 600 t a 18.6% increase from 2002. Production is still dominated by the Into Raymi gold mine that is responsible for over 75% of Bolivia’s production. The mine is situated at Kori Kollo on the Altiplano north of Oruro with Newmont Mining owning 88% and Zeland Mines SA (12%) of the project. The mine began production in 1993 and produced 306 000 oz gold in 2001. However, reserves at the mine are rapidly being exhausted and are currently estimated at 700 000 oz.
Through a local subsidiary, Empresa Minera Paititi, Orvana Minerals has purchased a gold mining concession and related equipment from Comsur. The Don Mario gold deposit is located in eastern Bolivia and has mineable reserves estimated at containing 1.17 Mt grading 10.24 g/t gold for 386,000 oz gold.
Bolivia has several smaller scale gold projects currently undergoing feasibility studies by several foreign companies. Apart from hard rock gold finds, Bolivia has several high grade alluvial gold fields. The largest and highest grade fields are located on the Challana, the Kaka, the Mapirí, and the Tipuani river valleys in northern part of La Paz. Golden Eagle Bolivia are currently evaluating the Tipuani region where the company has secured mining rights over 74 000 acres. The Araras area near the border with Brazil has also been identified as prospective for alluvial gold, in particular the Madera and the Madre de Dios Rivers. More gold as also been discovered this year, along with much silver (see below) at Malku Khota.
Silver Three centuries after being the world's largest producer of silver, Bolivia still produced 225 tons of silver in 1988, as compared with about 140 tons in 1987. Recent finds, such as the one in 2010 by the South American Silver Company at Malku Khota, which is known to be one of the world's largest undeveloped silver resources, will increase mining activity.
Potassium Bolivia also has approximately 110 million tons of potassium, much of which is mixed in with the lithium (see below).
Lithium The lithium and potassium deposits located in the brines of the southern Altiplano's Uyuni saltpan are estimated to be the largest of their kind in the world. The United States Geological Survey, the Bolivian Geological Survey (Servicio Geológico de Bolivia), and others discovered large reserves of lithium in 1976. By 1985 Bolivia's National Congress had made lithium extraction a national priority and created the Industrial Complex of the of Uyuni Saltpan (Complejo Industrial de los Recursos Evaporíticos del Salar de Uyuni) to explore and market lithium. Because the extraction of lithium is an expensive, technically complex process, the government sought bids for some foreign investment in lithium in the late 1980s.
Presently, Bolivia is believed to have over 50% of the world’s supply, and bids are being accepted for mining, with the proviso that lithium batteries be developed in Bolivia.
Manganese The Mutun reserves are located in Bolivia's German Busch province in Santa Cruz, and extend into Brazil. They contain an estimated 10bn tons of manganese. Bolivia's government may seek an agreement with Brazil, similar to the recent gas pipeline contract between the countries, to develop the reserves.
Lead The lead and silver Karachipampa facility in Potosí was the nation's largest smelter. Although the authorities considered lead a minor metal, production increased from 9,000 tons in 1987 to 11,000 tons in 1988.
Tin Bolivia's mines had produced cassiterite, the chief source of tin, since 1861. By the mid-twentieth century, four famlies controlled all or most of the tin, the most prominent being the Patino clan. 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.
Bismuth Reserves were estimated at 4,100 tons, and production in 1987 reached two-thirds of a ton entirely by small miners. Bolivia, the site of the International Bismuth Institute, was once the sole producer of bismuth in the world. One of the applications of bismuth is in the making of high grade, long lasting paints, such as bismuth yellow.
Uranium The last mine closed in 1974. The government has set aside $500,000 for research into continuing mining in the future, but there is no date set as yet.
Tungsten Bolivia was also the leading producer of tungsten among market economies. But the dramatic decline in tungsten prices in the 1980s severely hurt production, despite the fact that reserves stood at 60,000 tons. Medium and small producers accounted for over 80 percent of the country's tungsten production in the late 1980s. The International Mining Company's Chojilla mine was the source of most tungsten output. Tungsten production sank from 2,300 tons in 1984 to barely more than 800 tons in 1987 because of falling international prices. Tungsten was sold to West European, East European, and Latin American countries, as well as to the United States.
Zinc This is Bolivia's leading export from the mines. Zinc output also rose in the late 1980s from roughly 39,000 tons in 1987 to over 53,000 tons in 1988, compared with 47,000 tons in 1975. Nearly all zinc was exported. In 1987 the government declared the construction of a new zinc refinery in Potosí a national priority.
Present plans for zinc mining include a $500 million investment in two new plants, to be located in Potosi and Oruro, with production expected to be 200 tons per year. Exports stand at 429 tons (2009), up from 385 the previous year. The 2009 production netted a profit of $685 million.
Magnesium Unknown amounts of magnesium are found in association with lithium. Boron 3.2 tons of boron are known to exist.
Antimony Bolivia mined about a fifth of the world's antimony in the late 1980s and was the leading producer among market economies. Private companies were responsible for all antimony production. The largest output came from the United Mining Company (Empresa Minera Unificada), which controlled the two largest antimony mines, located at Chilcobija and Caracota, both in Potosí Department. Medium and small miners generated an average of 9,500 tons of antimony a year in the mid-to late-1980s, all of which was exported. Antimony, a strategic mineral used in flame-proofing compounds and semiconductors, was exported in concentrates, trioxides, and alloys to all regions of the world, with most sales going to Britain and Brazil. Antimony reserves in 1988 stood at 350,000 tons.
Deposits also exist in Oruro, in western Bolivia, where Glencore, a Swiss firm, had contracts to mine. However, after it failed to invest, and was found to be dismantling the smelter, Mining Minister Jose Pimentel traveled to Oruro to carry out the legal steps necessary for state-owned Empresa Metalurgica Vinto to take control of the smelter.
Iron After years of planning, the Mutún iron mine was scheduled to open its first of two plants in 1989. The Mutún mine, the sole responsibility of the Mining Company of the Oriente, was expected to yield 592,000 tons of iron in its first five years of operation, with an estimated total of 40 billion tons of ore. The prospects for the steel industry, which was controlled by Bolivian Iron and Steel (Unidad Promotora de La Siderurgia Boliviana, formerly known as Siderúrgica Boliviana), however, were bleak. After more than a decade of planning a national steel plant, Bolivia was still unable to obtain financing for such a project, especially given international overcapacity in steel. The possibility of a national steel plant appeared unlikely at the end of the 1980s.
Recent contracts with Jindhal Steel of India came to a halt after Jindhal failed to comply with dealines in the contract. Bolivia has the largest supply of iron in the world, albeit of a medium grade, some mixed with sulfur compounds.
Cadmium Reserves exist in western Bolivia, often mixed with sulfur compounds.
Chromium Like cadmium, it is mined in the west, where it is mixed with sulfur compounds. Neither is mined presently in any great quantities if at all; oxides of both are used in quality artists' paints.
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