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Thailand MINING
Thailand's mineral reserves had not been well assessed in the
1980s. Mining and quarrying accounted for only a small share of
GDP, in 1986 amounting to about 2 percent of the total in real
terms. About thirty minerals were exploited commercially, but
many were of minor significance. Tin, tungsten, fluorite, and
precious stones were important foreign exchange earners in the
early 1980s and so, to a lesser extent, was antimony. Minerals of
substantial value to the domestic economy included lignite,
gypsum, salt (which was also exported), iron ore, lead,
manganese, limestone, and marble.
Tin was the leading mineral. The existence of tin in the area
of present-day Thailand was known at least by the thirteenth
century, when it was alloyed with copper in casting bronze images
of the Buddha. In the 1980s, major workings were located in the
southern peninsula, although deposits were also found and worked
in several other parts of the country. The ore was obtained from
onshore alluvial deposits, weathered and disintegrated
formations, river beds, and offshore deposits along the
seacoasts.
Production of tin concentrates averaged over 29,000 tons
annually in the early 1970s, dropped to about 22,000 tons in the
mid-1970s, and then rose to 46,000 tons in 1980. By 1985 tin
production had dropped to about 23,000 tons as a result of export
controls imposed by the International Tin Council and the
indefinite closing of a major offshore mining company. The actual
output of concentrates in the 1980s was believed to have been at
least 10 percent higher than officially reported. The additional
quantity represented tin concentrates smuggled from the country
to escape payment of both business taxes and the statutory
royalty deducted from the price paid to the seller by the
foreign-controlled Thailand Smelting and Refining Company
(THAISARCO). The export of tin ore and concentrates was banned by
the government after THAISARCO began smelting tin in 1965 at a
newly constructed plant on Phuket Island. Most of the smuggled
concentrates originally went to Penang, but this trade had been
largely halted by the Malaysian authorities; in the 1980s, the
illegal ore was sent to Singapore for smelting.
Since the mid-1970s, the tin-mining industry has generated a
large amount of political controversy, social unrest, and illegal
activity that continued into the mid-1980s. Onshore mining
operations were carried on mostly by small miners who were
predominantly Thai. Offshore operations included a number of
large dredges owned by both Thai enterprises and foreign firms,
as well as thousands of suction boats. Both kinds of operations
were supposed to be registered with local provincial authorities.
The tin fields had attracted large numbers of the unemployed or
persons seeking fortunes, however, who mined illegally. Reports
of a new tin strike brought thousands of individuals to the area,
resulting in such attendant social problems as claim jumping,
forged registration certificates, frequent violence, and the
like. In 1975 the government-owned Offshore Mining Organization
(OMO) was set up to replace large offshore oil concessions owned
by foreign corporations and ousted Thai government leaders. A
substantial amount of illegal dredging was also reported in the
OMO concession area, whose size and restrictions of exploitation
to subconcessionaires had created strong resentment among
independent small operators, even though the OMO had given
concession rights to a considerable number of them. In late 1979,
a group of nonconcession-holding small dredgers pressed the
provincial authorities of the area to urge the central government
to revoke all restrictions on mining in the OMO holdings. The
overall magnitude of illegal operations appeared in the early
1980s to be beyond the ability of the local authorities to
control. Official action, moreover, was often deterred by public
sympathy for the poor person struggling to eke out a living.
Thus, illegal mining was an important source of employment in
the southern peninsula and, in conjunction with related illegal
operations, created numerous ancillary jobs. From the national
viewpoint, however, a great loss of natural wealth occurred
because of haphazard and inefficient exploitation. Onshore
miners, legal and illegal, tended to take out only the readily
accessible richer ore, leaving varying amounts of lower grade ore
that, mined separately, was uneconomic. Large numbers of small
dredges sent divers down to find rich spots that were sucked up,
avoiding large nearby areas containing ore that was costly to
mine. Many of the dredges also had poor separation equipment, and
considerable quantities of ore were lost in the tailings. Because
of potential political problems, decisive action by the central
government (or provincial governments) to resolve this problem
did not appear imminent in the late 1980s.
Thailand is a rich source of sapphire, ruby, zircon, garnet,
beryl, quartz, and jadeite, and in 1986 gems and jewelry were a
large export item in terms of value. Significant deposits of
rubies were located in Chanthaburi and Trat provinces in the
southern part of the Center, and deposits of sapphire were found
in Kanchanaburi Province. Stones were also imported from Sri
Lanka, Australia, Africa, and South America for cutting and
setting into jewelry. By the mid-1980s, Thailand had become one
of the world's major gemcutting centers, and the craftsmanship of
Thai gemcutters was widely recognized.
Tungsten, an important source of foreign exchange earnings
beginning in the early 1970s, was found in the mountains in the
North and in the Bilauktaung Range along the Burmese border. In
1970 a major find of the tungsten mineral wolframite was made in
Nakhon Si Thammarat Province in the South. Antimony, also an
important export, was found in many parts of the country. Mining
was carried on almost entirely by small operators, but in the
mid-1970s cumulative annual production was about 6 percent of
total world output. Fluorite, one of Thailand's principal
exports, was mined mainly in the North in Chiang Mai and Lamphun
provinces, where large reserves existed. Relatively large
deposits of rock salt of approximately 97 percent purity underlay
areas in the Northeast. Reserves were estimated to be at least 2
billion tons. Although having great future export potential, the
lack of an adequate transportation infrastructure posed a major
problem for exploitation of the rock salt reserves.
Offering a hopeful promise of a new source of foreign
exchange earnings and savings on imports in the 1980s was the
long-delayed development of zinc mining and refining. This
involved exploitation of a large ore deposit, estimated at 3.5
million tons of 25 percent content, at Mae Sot in Tak Province
near the Burmese border. A zinc smelter constructed by a ThaiBelgian consortium began operation in 1984.
Data as of September 1987
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