Sept 8 (Reuters) – Following are facts about Venezuela’s mining sector, which is attracting interest from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
CONFUSION OVER RESERVES AND RESOURCES
In 2019, then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Delcy Rodriguez, who is acting president, announced a five-year mining plan aimed at boosting mineral extraction as an alternative to oil production.
The year prior, Venezuela’s government released data on mineral deposits that used mining industry terms interchangeably, including reserves and resources, making it difficult to ascertain whether Caracas knew its full mining potential.
A reserve is an estimate of the volume of a mineral that can be economically produced. A resource is the volume of a mineral estimated in an entire region, regardless of whether it can be economically produced.
The 2018 report, which was billed as a “minerals catalog” for potential investors and published on Venezuela’s mining ministry website, estimated coal reserves of roughly 3 billion metric tons and 407,885 metric tons of nickel reserves.
That same report estimated a gold resource of 644 metric tons, an iron ore resource of 14.68 billion metric tons — while acknowledging much of that was a speculative estimate — and a bauxite resource of 321.5 million metric tons.
In 2021, Venezuela’s government published a map of mineral reserves based on data compiled in 2009. That map showed reserves of antimony, copper, nickel, coltan, molybdenum, magnesium, silver, zinc, titanium, tungsten and uranium, but did not list volumes.
The country does not appear to have sizeable reserves of rare earths, a grouping of 17 minor metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion. Rare earths are a subset of critical minerals.
OPERATIONAL STATUS IS UNCLEAR
The operational status of the mines tied to Maduro’s five-year plan is not clear. However, Maduro’s National Council for Productive Economy late last year said national production of gold, coal and iron ore grew in the first three quarters of 2025, without providing figures.
Venezuela nationalized its gold sector in 2011. The government also controls iron and steel maker CVG.
Reuters reported last year that Venezuela had restarted coal production and aimed to export more than 10 million metric tons of the mineral in 2025. It is not clear whether the government hit that target. In 2019, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated that Venezuela produced 100,000 metric tons of coal from 731 million metric tons of reserves.
The latest available data on Venezuelan bauxite from the USGS, for 2021, put production at 250,000 metric tons, down from 550,000 metric tons in 2017, while iron ore output was 1.41 million metric tons on an iron content basis, and gold production was 480 kg.
Output of alumina, the substance refined from bauxite that is used to make aluminum metal, was estimated by the USGS to be 80,000 metric tons in 2021, down from 240,000 tons four years earlier. Aluminum production was estimated at 20,000 metric tons, down from 144,000 metric tons in 2017.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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