Mining, power and the new US Latin America strategy: project risk lens for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Latin America’s mineral-rich frontiers are being recast as security zones as the US-backed shift in Venezuela and Bolivia’s November 2025 election of President Rodrigo Paz pull lithium, copper and other critical minerals into a sharper geopolitical contest. Bolivia holds an estimated 23 million tonnes of lithium resources at Uyuni, but high magnesium-to-lithium ratios (~20:1) and 300+ mile port logistics, combined with unbankable contracts and volatile fuel-price protests that killed Decree 5503 in under a month, keep project finance on hold. State miner YLB’s underperforming 2023 industrial plant and new DLE-related patent filings on 23 January 2026 signal technical ambition, yet investors still demand arbitration clauses, phased drawdowns and political risk cover before backing large-scale extraction.
Technical Brief
- Verisk Maplecroft flags lithium contracts as “contracted but contested”, suitable for exploration spend but not project finance.
Our Take
Bolivia’s 23 million tonnes of identified lithium resources and 20% global share put it in the same strategic conversation as Chile’s Salar de Atacama and Argentina’s Puna, but our coverage shows most new lithium and copper capital in Latin America is still flowing to brownfield expansions elsewhere rather than greenfield brines with complex chemistries like Uyuni.
The 86–162% fuel price hikes under Decree 5503 materially change operating cost assumptions for lithium and other critical minerals in Bolivia and the wider Altiplano, whereas recent Chilean copper–lithium work such as the Ivanhoe Electric–SQM Atacama exploration is being framed more around technology and permitting risk than basic energy affordability.
Across the 766 Mining stories and 1484 tag-matched pieces in our database, copper and lithium in Latin America increasingly appear in a geopolitical context, but this piece is unusual in tying US strategy directly to power pricing and transport constraints such as the 300-mile haul to port, which will be central to any competitive cost case for Uyuni-scale developments before the end of the decade.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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