El Mutun
El Mutún is an approximately 75 km 2 region in eastern Bolivia ; it is located in the lowlands in the Santa Cruz Department near the city of Puerto Suárez and the Paraguay River (on the border with Brazil ).
The world's largest near-surface iron ore deposits are located in El Mutún . They are estimated at around 40 billion tons, and with the appropriate investments, Bolivia says it could produce around 10 million tons of pig iron there annually. The iron ore is characterized by a high iron content of over 50% as well as a low phosphorus and sulfur content . In addition, manganese deposits of around 10 billion t are suspected in the region. On the Brazilian side, the deposits that belong to the same geological unit are already being mined, which is one of the reasons why Brazil is one of the largest manganese producers worldwide.
The deposits have been known since 1848, and attempts have been made to exploit the deposits economically since the 1950s . This turns out to be extremely difficult due to the lack of connections to the region. By 1993 the annual production rose to 350,000 t, which was sold as raw ore to Argentina and Paraguay .
In 2005 the Brazilian company Grupo EBX received the license to mine iron ore in the area and smelt it into iron there. The decision was criticized because the company wants to run the blast furnaces with charcoal . The equivalent of 165,000 hectares of tropical rainforest would be burned annually . The production license was revoked by the new government under Evo Morales . This sparked violent protests in the east of the country.
After the government put the project out to tender with the stipulation that natural gas should be used to heat the furnaces , the Indian company Jindal Steel and Power was awarded the contract. The natural gas pipeline to Brazil only runs 20 km past El Mutún, Bolivia has the second largest natural gas reserves in South America.