OLACDE Presents $35 Billion Roadmap for Critical Minerals in Latin America

The Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organization (OLACDE) will present on Monday October 5, at 3:00 p.m., two white papers addressing the region's mining and energy future: one focused on mining development and energy planning, and another on energy efficiency. The event will take place jointly with the Ministry of Energy and Mines of the Dominican Republic, as part of the XI Energy Week, in Salon Embajador 3 of the Hotel El Embajador in Santo Domingo, and can be followed remotely through the OLACDE YouTube channel.

The mining development document outlines a scenario of measured but concrete growth: if the region significantly expands its capacity to refine and process critical minerals, the economic value of that production could rise from USD 185 billion to USD 220 billion by 2035. The difference of USD 35 billion would not occur automatically but would require coordinating investments, logistics infrastructure, and energy planning simultaneously, according to the analysis.

Lithium and Copper: The Basis of Comparative Advantage That Has Yet to Translate Into Added Value

Latin America and the Caribbean concentrate, according to the white papers, around 60% of global lithium reserves and more than 30% of copper reserves. This resource endowment places the region among the world's leading suppliers of inputs for the energy transition, particularly for batteries, electric mobility, and electrical grids. However, OLACDE's own analysis underscores that much of this value is exported as raw material with minimal local processing, limiting value capture within producing economies.

The diagnosis holds that expanding refining and processing capacity—that is, advancing from the extractive stage toward higher-complexity industrial links—is the central variable for capturing that opportunity of USD 35 billion additional. This implies investment in processing plants, transport infrastructure, and crucially, an electrical matrix capable of supplying these processes competitively and sustainably.

Predominantly Renewable Power Generation as a Competitive Advantage

The white paper highlights that the region has power generation close to 70% renewable, a fact presented as a strategic asset for future mining, in a global context where environmental traceability of critical minerals is beginning to condition access to international markets and financing. The convergence between abundant mineral resources and a clean energy matrix is presented as an uncommon combination globally, one that could differentiate Latin American mining projects against other supply sources.

Nevertheless, the document recognizes that turning this advantage into competitive projects requires coordination between energy planning and mining planning, two agendas that historically developed independently in much of the region's countries. The lack of such coordination, according to the analysis, is one of the main obstacles to scaling local processing capacity.

The Region's Energy Efficiency Lag

The second document, the Energy Efficiency White Paper, exposes a significant gap: between 2000 and 2023, the region improved its energy efficiency at a rate of only 0.54% annually, against a global average of 1.37%. This difference means that while other world regions advance in reducing energy consumption per unit of output at more than double the rate of Latin America and the Caribbean, the region accumulates a lag that directly impacts the competitiveness of its productive sectors.

The institutional diagnosis is also striking regarding public management capacities in this area: of the 27 OLACDE member countries, only eight have a publicly identifiable numerical energy efficiency target, and just five have an updated useful energy balance. These planning tools—quantifiable targets and energy balances—are considered basic inputs for designing effective public energy-saving policies, so their scarcity limits states' capacity to monitor progress and correct course.

Industry, the Sector With Greatest Savings Potential

The white paper identifies industry as the sector with the greatest room for improvement: it consumes more than 28% of the region's final energy, a percentage that makes it the primary focus of efficiency policies. In this regard, the document reviews concrete experiences in energy management under the ISO 50001 standard, an international energy management systems standard. According to the survey, 66 implementations of this standard in the region avoided energy expenses of more than USD 70 million, a figure illustrating the savings potential available even without major new infrastructure investments, but through management and process improvements.

Institutional Framework and Next Steps

Both publications were conceived as guidance tools for public policy design and investment decision-making, in a context of accelerated transformation of energy and mineral markets globally. The choice of the Dominican Republic as the venue for the presentation, as part of the XI Energy Week organized with the local Ministry of Energy and Mines, fits OLACDE's strategy of coordinating these diagnoses with the region's governments.

The distributed material includes no statements attributed to OLACDE officials or executives or the Dominican Ministry, so the substantive content of the presentation—and any additional public policy announcements or inter-country cooperation—will depend on what is presented during the October 5 event, broadcast live on the organization's YouTube channel.

For South American countries with active mining production, including Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia, OLACDE's diagnosis poses a fundamental question that goes beyond technical matters: whether the region will continue exporting critical minerals with low processing or whether it can achieve, in the next decade, capturing a larger share of the added value currently generated outside its borders.