Mexican national companies and foreign companies are exploring the State of Chihuahua with renewed zeal according to reports in Diario de Juarez. State officials and companies in the mining industry in the state of Chihuahua claim they are seeing "miner's fever" again. Foreign and mexican national companies undertook a total of 47 explorations in search of gold, copper, silver, zinc and lead. In addition, the production value of mines in Chihuahua surpassed $653 million dollars, greater than the value of all other exports from the state and highest for the nation in terms of valuable metals.
However, micro and small mining companies believe the field is in danger of dissappearing due to lack of support, very little credit, reluctant attention from government officials and very high production costs. During the International Mining Conference "Chihuahua, Siglo XXI", a global presentation was made regarding the mining industry in the state as well as in the country and the entire world. With some small differences, government officials, mining engineering colleges, Chamber of the Mining Industry and companies in that field generally agreed that production is currently doing well, in large part due to better prices for all metals. Francisco Flores, official of the state government's department of mining stated that the total value of mining production in Chihuahua surpassed the economic gains of cattle, lumber and manufacturing.
In other news, the Grupo Mexico Association will invest $21 million dollars in Chihuahua in four mines, which will increase the mineral production to 6,300 tons per day. In three mines in the Santa Barbara complex and in the Santa Eulalia mine, Grupo Mexico has 1,229 union and non-union workers, and counts on explorable reserves for an additional 50 billion tons.
According to representatives of Grupo Mexico, the association's mineral production will focus on zinc, lead, and copper and concentrate on the last two. The Santa Barbara district will increase it's production to 6,000 tons per day in the mines San Diego-Coyote, Sefovedad-Bronces, and Tecolotes. At that site the association will invest $21,400,000 the majority of which will be allocated to the expansion of the metal concentration plant and another portion will be allocated to labor costs associated with the expansion of the others. The explorable mineral reserve in the Santa Barbara district is considered to be 26 million tons.
Sources: Diario de Juarez