Gold rules: two out of every three dollars that mining exports depend on that metal

The account is compelling: two out of every three dollars that Argentine mining invoices today depend on a single mineral. There is also the most fragile side. Because gold is not exporting more: it is exporting more expensive. In the first four months, 112 tons were shipped, a volume almost identical to that of 2017 (116 tons) and barely double that of 2007. What skyrocketed was the price, not production: a decade ago its maximum limit was US$1,370 per ounce and today it is around US$4,500.

These data are analyzed by Empiria, the consultancy firm of Hernán Lacunza and Nicolás Gadano, and concludes that The export dynamics of Argentine mining is, today, “a function of the international price of gold”. That is to say, the bonanza of these months depends more on what happens in London or New York than on an Argentina that extracts more metal.

The opposite happens with lithium.. There is a story of genuine volume: the tons exported went from 2,880 in 2007 to 47,592 this year, a jump that reflects the implementation of the projects in the northern salt flats and that led the country to third place among world producers. What is missing is price: hit by oversupply since the peak of 2022-2023, it is just beginning to recover, and therefore, despite exporting much larger volumes than gold, still generates less than a third of those currencies.

Anyway, the map is going to change. If today gold explains two thirds of the business, the photo projected for 2035 is another: a sector exporting US$ 37,000 millionwhich are six times more than now, where copper would represent 52% of the total; lithium, 32% and gold would fall to less than 10%. The mineral that rules today would be relegated, in just a decade, to third place.

This turnaround does not depend on international prices changing, but on something more earthly: the timing of mining activity. Between when an investment is announced and construction begins, and between when the construction phase begins and the first shipment leaves, between five and eight years pass, with exploration stages, feasibility studies and environmental approvals in between.

And there is a fact that usually goes unnoticed: construction only begins when the company has approved 100% of the project capital, not before. That explains why gold weighs so much right now: they are mines that are already in production and they react almost instantly when the price rises.

Copper, on the other hand, is one step back in that time chain: Vicuña, Los Azules, El Pachón y Altar in San Juan; MARA and the reactivation of Under The Alumbrera in Catamarca; Taca Taca in Salta; Saint George in Mendoza. All are in different stages prior to construction, presented to RIGI or in the approval process.

That is why the projected copper export curve is not a gentle slope, but a staircase: marginal numbers until now, a first jump to about US$4.6 billion towards 2030, and a second jump of another scale starting in 2032, with exports above US$10 billion annually.

It is not that the copper business suddenly becomes more profitable: it is that that is when an entire portfolio of projects that began moving years before finishes maturing, simultaneously. The RIGI accelerates, but does not decide.

In this process, Empiria defines RIGI as a “catalyst”: it accumulates mining projects presented for almost US$50 billion, of which around 42% has already been approved.

But it is advisable not to confuse the times: The approval of the regime is not, strictly speaking, the turning point of a mining project. No matter how many assured tax benefits it has, any project remains, on paper, a possibility.

That distinction is the key to reading the next five years of Argentine mining. As long as gold continues to set the export pulse thanks to the international price, the important question is not how much the metal is worth, but how many of those US$50 billion presented to the RIGI manage to cross the border between the advertisement and the work. It depends on this speed that the copper arrives on time for the 2032 event, and that San Juan, Catamarca and Salta finish consolidating themselves as the new poles of Argentine mining.