Mexico is one of the world’s most attractive mineral exploration and mining jurisdictions due to:
- Long term mining history of >500 years;
- Well-established mining culture leading to strong government, bureaucratic and public support for mining;
- Skilled and experienced workforce accessible and readily available;
- Low sovereign risk with a first-world standard mining and environmental laws providing strong security of ownership of mineral rights and for project development;
- Attractive commercial environment, with low taxation rates relative to other Latin American mining jurisdictions;
- Foreign companies, foreign ownership and repatriation of capital allowed.
About the Mexican mining industry*
- The mining industry of Mexico is an important revenue stream for the government, contributing 8.3% to industrial GDP and 2.5% to national GDP in 2017
- The Mexican mining industry generated more than 370,000 direct jobs and approximately 1.7 million indirect jobs in 2017
- The outstanding geological potential of Mexico has seen the country become the world’s fourth-largest foreign direct investment (FDI) destination for mining and the leading destination of such FDI in Latin America.
*Source: https://www.export.gov/article?id=Mexico-Mining-and-Minerals
Outstanding Geology
For more than 500 years, the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) mineral province in central and northern Mexico has been a prolific and important producer of silver, gold, copper, lead, zinc and other minerals. One of the world’s premier mining regions, it accounts for the majority of Mexico’s silver and gold production, historically producing more than 40 million ounces of gold and two billion ounces of silver.
The SMO overlaps with the Laramide Copper Province which extends from northern Mexico into Arizona. The Laramide is North America’s most prolific copper-producing district and hosts the second largest concentration of copper deposits in the world.
Azure’s two leading projects, Oposura and Alacrán host silver, silver-gold and zinc-lead-silver deposits and are located in Sonora State within the overlapping portion of the northern SMO and the southern Laramide.
