Results of the study are separated into three sections. First, the evolution of mineral production of LA-20 from 1995 to 2013 is analyzed using both mass terms (tonnes) and ERC terms (Mtoe). Additionally, Sankey diagrams are used to represent the mineral trade in 2013 of three selected countries (Brazil, Chile, and Mexico) both in mass and ERC. Then, ratios that show the dependency or self-sufficiency of the region are calculated for 2013. Last, the destinations of the exports of materials produced in LA-20 are studied to have a better knowledge of which countries are relegating in LA-20 the environmental burden associated to the mining industry.
3.1. Mineral Balance
Figure 1 shows non-fuel mineral production of LA-20 disaggregated by minerals, data was compiled from USGS statistics [
68] and then compared to the information provided by national agencies to ensure maximum coherence and completeness.
Overall, in mass terms, the most extracted minerals in LA-20 from 1995 to 2013, were iron, aluminum, salt, limestone, and gypsum (average of 197, 28, 18, 12, and 9 million tonnes per year, respectively). When these data is translated into loss of natural stock in the region, through the ERC concept, the highest loss corresponded to aluminum (average value of 413 Mtoe), followed by iron (84 Mtoe). In the period of analysis, iron production represented 72% as an average of the total production in tonnes, while in Mtoe it represented only 13%. On the opposite side, aluminum, which only represented 10% of the total production in tonnes, represented 66% in ERC. Hence, the loss of natural stock in LA-20 was mainly caused by aluminum rather than iron. The importance of taking into consideration quality and not only quantity of non-fuel minerals is revealed with this comparison.
The complete mineral balance disaggregated by mineral for LA-20 in 2013 in mass and ERC terms can be seen in the
Appendix B and
Appendix C. Analyzing these data in detail, it can be observed that the most extracted fuel minerals in that year were crude oil and natural gas, with a share of 63% and 23% of the total fossil fuels, respectively. Regarding non-fuel minerals, iron, aluminum, and salt were the most produced in mass terms (69%, 9%, and 6%, respectively). When looking at consumption data, crude oil, and natural gas were largely consumed within LA-20, and regarding non-fuel minerals, iron, aluminum, limestone, and salt were mostly consumed internally. The cases of limestone and salt can be easily explained as usually industrial minerals, which have lower prices than other metallic or non-metallic minerals, are consumed internally, rather than exported to other countries.
As stated before, mineral trade can be represented using Sankey diagrams, with arrows showing the production, imports, exports, and domestic consumption proportional to flow quantities. As it was previously mentioned, domestic consumption referred to apparent and not final consumption. Therefore, and as opposed to conventional EW-MFA, semi-manufactured products (either entering or leaving the analyzed system) were not taken into account. In conventional EW-MFA, the composition of most traded goods is assessed using the main material component or the main raw materials used in the production. On the contrary, in our analysis if for example iron was used internally to produce steel, and this in turn, was exported, the corresponding iron was considered as a commodity consumed internally. This is why, according to the EW-MFA definitions, our results are only partial when analyzing imports and exports as we only consider bulk commodities.
Three countries have been selected for such purposes, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico (
Figure 2). These countries have been chosen as an example as they approximately represent 65% of the total mineral trade in LA-20. All of the mineral commodities (38) along with natural gas, oil, and coal are represented in the diagram, but the legend only shows those that can be easily seen in the figure.
In some countries, when calculating the domestic material consumption, negative values can be obtained for certain commodities, such as gold, silver, lead, or zinc, as exports are higher than production and imports combined. Illegal and artisanal mining are a serious problem in the region, especially in the case of precious metals, such as gold [
69,
70,
71,
72]. In 2013, it was estimated that 158 tonnes of gold were produced illegally, accounting for
$6.9 billion USD. Countries with higher illegal gold production rates in that year were: Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador [
72]. Negative values of domestic consumption can also be explained by the lack of reported data by official authorities and variation in stocks that are not shown on mineral statistics. The difference between input and output flows was represented in the diagram as “imbalance”. Still, this imbalance on average is quite low when compared to the remaining flows.
In Brazil in 2013, in mass terms, the most produced and exported commodity was iron, with a share of 57% of the total domestic production and 85% of the total exports, respectively. When analyzing that same information applying the ERC concept, the main commodity contributing to the loss of natural stock was aluminum, with a share of 66%. In a merely tonnage perspective there is almost no difference between total exports and total domestic consumption. On the other hand, in terms of quality, consumption of higher-quality minerals, such as aluminum, potash, and crude oil, was three times higher than exports.
As for Chile, the country imported large amounts of fossil fuels and principally produced copper, iron, and salt. Chile is a world leader in copper production, and in 2013 copper extracted represented one-third of the global copper production [
73]. When transforming this information using ERC, it can be seen that copper plays a major role in exports as more emphasis is placed on its physical quality: it represents more than 90% of the total exports. Total exports in tonnes represent a fifth of the total outputs (exports plus domestic consumption) but when expressed in ERC they only account half.
As for Mexico, the most notable difference with the other two countries is that it mainly produces fossil fuels, along with small amounts of iron. It is also noteworthy that there was no major dependency on the external supply for internal consumption of minerals, as only small amounts of gas and coal were imported. In mass terms, Mexico’s consumption was mainly dominated by natural gas and crude oil and was one order of magnitude higher than exports. In ERC terms, consumption was approximately two times higher than exports. A possible explanation for this value is the high fossil-fuel consumption in Mexico, as, for instance, in 2014 more than 59% of the total final energy consumption came from fossil fuels [
74].
3.2. Mass and ERC Indicators
As stated before, different ratios were calculated: DE/DMC, I/DMC, and E/DMC, each considering domestic extraction, imports, and exports, respectively, when compared to DMC. These ratios only include material trade of the fossil fuels and non-fuel minerals listed in previous sections.
All of the ratios were calculated both in tonnes and in Mtoe for LA-20 for 2013 (
Table 2). Absolute results are not comparable between both units of measure. Yet that is not the case when we assess ratios, such as DE/DMC, I/DMC, or E/DMC.
When looking at DE/DMC ratios of non-fuel minerals, it is clear that LA-20 in 2013 produced more minerals than those it consumed internally. Imports were significantly lower than domestic consumption and exports were also significant, which is consistent with the image that LA-20 has of being a net exporter territory. In the case of DE/DMC ratio, the value in mass is higher than in ERC. The explanation relays on the weight of iron, a very abundant element that has a low ERC value (18 GJ/t). When expressed in tonnes iron accounts for 68% of the total LA-20 mineral production but in ERC this value is only for 13%. On the contrary, for the I/DMC ratio, the value in ERC is higher than in mass, meaning that the minerals imported have higher ERC values and are therefore more scarce, such is the case of potassium (665 GJ/t), which accounts for 79% of the total imports in ERC, but only 19% in mass.
The region produced more fossil fuels than those it consumed internally; analyzing the DE/DMC and E/DMC, it can be seen that a large amount of the fossil fuels produced in the region were exported. No high variation between ratios of DE/DMC, I/DMC, and E/DMC of fossil fuels can be appreciated when comparing the results in mass and ERC. This is related to the high importance of oil and gas in domestic extraction, as, as seen before, both represented approximately 85% of the total fossil fuels extracted in LA-20 in 2013. A higher variation would be perceived if coal would play a more important role. This is because coal has a comparatively lower HHV than oil or natural gas.
Calvo et al. [
35] applied MFA with an exergoecology approach for twenty-eight European countries (EU-28) using 2011 as the reference year. Although the latter and current study differs by two years, a comparison among the indicators obtained in this study will give us an indication of mineral sufficiency and dependency for both regions.
In general, this comparison clearly shows a markedly difference between both regions, while DE/DMC is higher than 1 for LA-20 (i.e., exports are larger than imports), stating the relevance of domestic extraction and exports, for the EU-28 this value is considerably lower. This is understandable as EU-28 relies on minerals imports rather than on domestic extraction, therefore shifting the environmental burden of mineral extraction to other territories.
As expected, non-fuel mineral values of the ratio I/DMC for LA-20 were considerably lower than those for EU-28. This reveals that EU-28 had to rely on importing materials to meet its internal needs, while, in LA-20, domestic extraction was sufficient to cover most of its internal demand. In addition, the E/DMC ratio was higher for LA-20 than for EU-28, reflecting the importance of LA-20 as an exporter region.
Contrary to what happens in EU-28, which in 2011 was extremely dependent on fossil fuels, in LA-20 the import to DMC ratio was considerably lower and for the case of the exports ratio, it reflected the fossil fuel trade that takes place in the region.
Ratios of DE/DMC, I/DMC, and E/DMC, calculated in ERC terms only, for every country, except for Haiti due to a lack of data, are shown in
Table 3. It is noteworthy that DMC values for Costa Rica and El Salvador are the only ones with negative figures. This is because, as it can be seen in the annexes, export values for these countries are higher than production and imports. The lack of mineral production official data, which can be incomplete or present gaps, can lead to lower values that do not reflect the reality of the country. This is even more notorious in ERC than in mass terms, because scarcer minerals have a higher weight.
Countries with a ratio DE/DMC higher than 1 in 2013 were: Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in 2013 produced three times more fuel and non-fuel minerals than their national consumption.
This classification also shows the importance of performing the analysis using ERC, since, until now, in a mass basis analysis, only a few countries, such as, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, and Chile, were considered as the most significant producers in the region because of their mining and oil tradition.
3.3. Exports by Destination
In this section, the destinations of the non-fuel minerals from Latin America were studied, not analyzing only quantities, as other studies previously did [
12,
19,
20,
21,
22,
75], but considering that minerals are more valuable from a quality point of view with the ERC approach.
Although all 38 non-fuel minerals previously mentioned before were considered in the analysis, in the graphs only those that can be seen appear on the legend. These graphs were based on data from UN Comtrade [
65]. As explained before, this database allows for avoiding double accounting, being able to eliminate flows between LA-20 countries and only analyzing trade between LA-20 and the rest of the world.
The main exported minerals were aluminum, iron, zinc, copper, silver, and gold (139, 134, 117, 58, 32, and 23 Mtoe, respectively). As it can be seen in
Figure 3, approximately one quarter of all the minerals produced in LA-20 ended in North America, mainly going to the United States, while the rest went to other territories. This share can be understood because proximity is a key factor in mineral trade and also because some companies that own mines in LA-20 have processing plants in other parts of the world.
High quality minerals, such as aluminum or gold, were exported mostly to North America (59 and 77%, respectively). The majority of copper produced in LA-20 was exported to China (38%), as well as silver (48%), while most of the zinc exports went to Russia (41%). Additionally, a not negligible 21% of gold went to Europe. More results disaggregated by mineral can be seen in
Appendix D.
It can be observed that even using an ERC approach, iron still accounts for the vast majority of the exports as even if the ERC of iron is quite low when compared to other commodities, the extraction figures are so high that it masks other scarcer minerals. For this reason, some elements were removed from
Figure 3 so other mineral flows can be seen (
Figure 4).
If those results were analyzed only in tonnes, it would seem that LA-20 only exports iron, aluminum, and salt, as these three elements alone represents 95% of the total exports to other countries. Still, between only Chile and Peru, they represented more than one third of the total copper production in the world, Chile alone has 6 of the 10 largest copper mines in the world, while two others are located in Peru and Mexico. Moreover, around 12% of gold is produced in LA-20, with some of the largest gold mines being located in Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Peru.