Spain hunts hidden metals with $223M plan

Spain aims to begin airborne mineral surveys covering 100,000 sq. km within weeks, while explorers press for clearer spending plans and access to the results of a national effort to identify new deposits.

The flights would gather magnetic, radiometric and gravity data across three geological zones in western and southern Spain, with completion scheduled for June 30, officials with the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME) said Tuesday. It’s part of a five-year exploration program with estimated investment of €197 million ($223 million), including government-funded work and private spending.

“Although the ultimate aim of a program of this kind is to increase exploration by mining companies and, where appropriate, exploitation of the resources, IGME’s main objective is to improve knowledge of our country’s mineral resources,” Susana Timón, a department director at the institute, told the Mining and Minerals Hall conference.

“Artificial intelligence techniques will be applied to identify areas with high mineral potential and obtain predictive geological models.”

The initiative seeks to lower the uncertainty facing companies looking for critical minerals as Europe tries to strengthen domestic supplies. But a roundtable the following morning exposed questions over how spending will be allocated, how companies will participate and how quickly new knowledge will become useful to explorers.

Deposits, waste

Spain’s exploration program runs from 2026 to 2030. It combines investigation of mineral deposits with research into recovering valuable materials from mining waste.

Its estimated investment includes €51 million for the IGME unit of the National Research Council, other central-government bodies and universities; €115 million for work by state-owned miner Hunosa and private companies; €16 million in government grants; and €15 million in private investment expected to accompany those grants.

Public funding remains dependent on annual appropriations, Timón cautioned. Spain’s continued operation under an extended budget means available money will depend on budget amendments linked to proposed work, she said.

Flights, fieldwork

The airborne survey would cover the Central Iberian, Ossa-Morena and South Portuguese geological zones. Aircraft would fly lines 400 metres apart at an average height of about 100 metres, according to Timón’s presentation.

The work is intended to identify geological features that warrant closer investigation, including mineralization concealed below the surface.

Two initial areas for primary mineral investigation are San Silvestre de Guzmán in Huelva province and Morille in Salamanca province.

San Silvestre covers 1,583.7 sq. km in the South Portuguese zone. Researchers will investigate copper and other elements associated with polymetallic sulphides, including germanium, gallium and indium. Magnetic anomalies identified by previous surveys helped guide the selection.

Morille covers 4,353 sq. km in the Central Iberian zone, with targets including tungsten, tin, niobium, tantalum and lithium. Historical workings, more than 100 mineral occurrences and drill core held at IGME’s repository in Peñarroya provide starting points.

A separate investigation would examine mining waste at Santa Bárbara and Elena in Córdoba province, and Paquito La Manzana and El Centenillo in Jaén. Potential materials of interest include antimony, cobalt, copper, nickel, silver, lead and zinc.

Research permits for the initial state-reserve areas were being prepared, with Hunosa providing technical direction, Timón said.

Industry seeks detail

At the Wednesday roundtable, Juan Manuel Pons Pérez, manager of consultancy Avalonia Minería y Obra Civil, urged officials to show how allocations translate into specific work assigned to participating organizations.

“It’s not that there’s no planning — I imagine there is planning by activity,” Pons said. “But we, society in general, don’t know about it.”

Dulce Vega González, director general of consultancy Sadim, responded that preliminary costing had already been undertaken using representative areas, proposed tasks and market prices.

“There are quantities and unit prices that formed the basis of the overall budget,” Vega said.

Those estimates covered work ranging from surveys and drilling to laboratory analysis, modelling and databases. More detailed projects would provide the basis for implementation, she said. Vega also described plans to identify specialist companies and domestic technical capabilities, aiming to establish a list by year-end.

Timón said the mechanisms for public-private collaboration were still being developed. Industry input would help shape how that cooperation works.

Juan León Coullaut Sáenz de Sicilia, president of CRS Ingeniería, questioned why the program required state reserves and what those arrangements meant for private-sector participation.

The discussion underscored the need to explain how public investigation relates to commercial exploration. Neither Tuesday’s presentation nor Wednesday’s panel provided a firm first release date for the airborne survey data.

Old knowledge

Part of the effort involves making better use of information Spain already possesses.

Historical geochemical results can provide valuable starting points, but older work often targeted a narrower range of metals than researchers want to investigate today, Timón said. New analyses would help fill those gaps.

José Francisco Mediato Arribas, who presented ahead of Timón on Tuesday, described the digitization of 2,000 documents from 684 historical projects. The institute is also inventorying a collection of about 30,000 plans, with more than 7,000 scanned so far.

Timón said the objective includes making analytical data usable, together with the information needed to judge their quality, rather than simply posting copies of old reports. The broader aim is to create geological knowledge that companies can use beyond the program’s five-year term. The work should become part of long-term state policy, she said.

“Raw materials are necessary for our economy to be strong,” she said.