Major mineral of Venezuela

MINERAL	RESERVES	PRODUCTION
Iron	1.5 bt.	17 Mt.
Steel	-	4.164
Gold	10000t.	9 t.
Bauxite	350Mt.	5Mt.
Cement	-	7Mt.
Coal	8.3bt.	8.1Mt.

World rank of Venezuela

MINERAL	WORLD RANK
Bauxite	7
Alumina	8
Aluminum	10
Gold	18
Coal	3
Oil	5
Gas	9

Alumina, Aluminum, and Bauxite— The Los Pijiguaos bauxite, located at the northwestern edge of the Guayana Shield in Venezuela, is lateritic bauxite developed on a Precambrian Rapakivi Granite Batholith, the Parguaza Granite.

The weathering profile is composed of an upper bauxite zone, followed by a saprolite, and merging gradually to the fresh granite. The upper bauxitic zone contains gibbsite, quartz, hematite, and goethite. The saprolite contains kaolinite, quartz, and goethite

The chemical composition of the deposit defines trends that can be traced back to the composition of the parent granite and shows enrichment of Al2 O3 , Fe2 O3 , and TiO2 , and depletion of SiO2 .Tachira coal sample, SW Venzuela, show a perceptible enrichment in Bi,Sb,As,Cd,MO, and they are highly enrichd in Ag and Co .and shows that B,Ba,La,V,Mn,Zn,Pb are deplated. Only, Co,B,have distinctive organic affinity.

With production of bauxite in 1994 up 64% compared with that of the previous year, which itself represented more than a doubling of the output of 1992, the bauxite mining industry signaled that it was on the way to becoming a major factor in the economy of Venezuela. Output of alumina dipped about 30% compared with that of the previous year. Production of metallic aluminum was about 430000 ton. Next to petroleum and petroleum products, aluminum was the most important export.

However, after the capitalizing of significant expansions in alumina and bauxite production during the 1992-93 market disturbances resulting from Russian dumping, all was not well with the financial side of the industry, particularly after a loss of $168 million in 1993 and the expectation of a bigger loss in 1994. Venalum, the biggest aluminum smelter, owned 80% by the Government and 20% by Japanese groups, as well as Interalumina and Bauxiven, were put on the market for privatization by CVG, which merged the administrative operations of the three companies. The hope was that the profit picture could be turned around, sooner rather than later, in that Venalum already has one of the world's lowest production costs for primary aluminum. Interalumina itself had been setting up a third alumina production line.