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Nicaragua Mining
Mining is not an important sector of the Nicaraguan
economy,
although the small amounts of gold and silver that are
extracted
provide much-needed export income. The country's two
principal
gold and silver mines are the Bonanza and the Siuna mines,
located in northeast Nicaragua about 100 kilometers west
of
Puerto Cabezas. A small gold mine, the El Limón mine,
operates
north of León. All mines were nationalized by the
government in
1979, and state control, combined with the fact that the
two
largest mines are in areas where the Contras operated,
caused
production of gold and silver to drop in the 1980s. The
1988
production figures of 875 kilograms of gold and 500
kilograms of
silver were less than half the 1983 production figures.
Small
amounts of copper, lead, and tungsten have been mined in
the
past, and the country has unexploited reserves of
antimony,
tungsten, molybdenum, and phosphate.
Data as of December 1993
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