By Barry FitzGerald
Resources Editor, The Australian
It is a wonder that more of our intrepid explorers, and miners for that matter, can’t be found in Mexico.
The place is as welcoming to explorers and miners as can be found, ranking fourth globally by one survey. And the sort of cost pressures that have emerged in Australia in the past 10 years on both explorers and miners doesn’t exist.
General labour is no more than $US20 a day, now cheaper than in China. Costs for geologists and drilling are about one-third the Australian cost, and there is one mining act covering the country. Now, none of that would matter if Mexico wasn’t prospective for minerals. But it is, as more than 500 years of serious mining history suggests.
But few ASX companies are kicking rocks there. But that is changing: one of the biggest miners, Rio Tinto, is teaming up with one of the few established ASX juniors in Mexico, Tony Rovira’s Azure Minerals (AZS).