Move comes amid declining bauxite reserves

Amid declining bauxite reserves, Jamaica is targeting new mining opportunities.

Jamaica, which has been mining bauxite for 70 years, is now faced with the prospect that bauxite mining is slowly coming to an end in Jamaica and there is the need for the country to look at other mining opportunities.

To this end Minister of Transport and Mining Audley Shaw is now aggressively targeting new areas of potential opportunity within the mining sector. He cited the case of limestone, which holds vast potential for Jamaica.

The minister is expressing confidence in Jamaica’s ability to capitalise on its rich limestone reserves, highlighting the country’s comparative advantage in the area of limestone production.

Shaw made the point that “one of the gifts that we have got from God is that we have an overwhelming quantity of limestone in Jamaica”.

He pointed to recent data that suggests that Jamaica has as many as 150 billion tons of limestone and pointed to the potential for mining limestone in the medium to long term.

Limestone estimates in Jamaica

According to Shaw, “it is estimated that we will probably mine 50 billion tons over the next several 100 years, so while bauxite will be in decline to some extent, limestone is going to pick up”.

He contended that there is a wide range of quality in Jamaican limestone, and that limestone of the highest quality can be used to produce tablets for medicinal use, among other things, with the right infusion of technology.

The minister cited the important use of limestone within the building industry, not just in Jamaica but for the entire Caribbean.

Said Shaw: “With the exception of Guyana, Jamaica has the largest limestone reserves in the entire Caribbean region.”

Speaking in a recent interview with the Jamaica Information Service, Shaw indicated that Jamaica, which has been mining bauxite for 70 years, must rise to the challenge of seizing the other opportunities that exist within the sector, in the face of declining bauxite reserves.

“The average estimate of the remaining productive and potentially profitable bauxite another 25 years of mining,” he said.

Shaw added that, as the new minister of transport and mining, he is very focused on ensuring that all mining activity is done with the necessary approvals from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), “so that whatever work we are doing, in terms of mining, has proper environmental management and supervision”.