Argentina expects to export $12.1 billion worth of lithium and $20.6 billion worth of copper in 10 years, up from $6 billion in mining exports last year, the South American country’s mining minister Luis Lucero said on Wednesday.
The projected surge in lithium and copper exports is an early indication that President Javier Milei’s RIGI investment incentive scheme is unlocking large-scale mining capital. If realized, those export levels would be more than five times the country’s mining exports in 2025, providing a major new source of hard currency for an economy historically constrained by foreign-exchange shortages.
“In 10 years, Argentina could be producing 580,000 tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) and 1,641,000 tons of copper annually,” Lucero said in an interview on the sidelines of a mining event in San Juan province.
Lucero previously estimated that Argentina’s mining exports would more than double to around $10 billion in 2027 from some $4 billion in 2024.
The total value of mining projects approved and submitted to the country’s Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) amounts to $50.692 billion, Lucero said. Milei has said the scheme, started in 2024, would attract about $70 billion worth of interested projects about a year after its implementation.
RIGI has helped Argentina attract investments from mining giants like BHP and Rio Tinto as the government aims to make mining a key sector in the country alongside energy and agriculture.
Argentina is the world’s fourth-largest supplier of lithium and, together with Chile and Bolivia, forms the so-called “lithium triangle”, which concentrates the world’s largest reserves of the white metal used in electronics, electric vehicles and other key technologies.
The country also exports gold and silver and has major copper projects under development, such as Vicuna by Australia’s BHP and Canada’s Lundin Mining, and Los Azules by McEwen Copper, a subsidiary of McEwen Mining. Most of the new copper projects will begin operations around 2030.
Lucero said that the idea of a “copper triangle” with Chile and Peru is beginning to emerge.
“Our great comparative advantage is that Argentina is just getting started. We have vast stretches of virgin territory to explore and a still underdeveloped geological potential. We have a historic opportunity,” Lucero said.
(By Lucila Sigal and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Nia Williams)
