Mendoza has started extending one of the most complex challenges of its mining modernization process into a historically fragmented and difficult-to-regulate area: third-category mining. Through new field-based initiatives with brickmakers and kiln operators, the province has begun advancing not only oversight and formalization efforts, but also the development of technical support mechanisms and administrative adaptation processes for dispersed, artisanal activities with deep local roots.
By Panorama Minero
The event held in El Algarrobal, Las Heras, brought together more than 50 producers from the brickmaking and kiln sector in a workshop organized by the Mining Environmental Authority in coordination with the Undersecretariat of Employment and Training.
Although the initiative was officially presented as a regularization and organizational effort, it reflects a much broader challenge for Mendoza: how to build effective mining management capacity across hundreds of small-scale operations distributed throughout the province and historically disconnected from formal systems of oversight and traceability.
Since 2024, Mendoza’s mining sector has undergone an institutional transformation marked by the full implementation of the new Mining Procedure Code, the expansion of inspection systems, the digitalization of control tools, and the consolidation of traceability mechanisms for second- and third-category minerals.
However, while public debate often focuses on copper, metal exploration, and new mining districts, much of the operational challenge lies within far more fragmented and geographically dispersed activities.
Mendoza has more than 500 operations linked to third-category minerals, including aggregates, clays, limestones, and gypsum used by the construction sector, brickworks, and industrial plants. In many cases, these are family-run businesses or small-scale productive structures that have operated for years under informal dynamics, with limited technical documentation and minimal integration into formal environmental and administrative systems.
Territorial Management as a New Mining Challenge
The workshop held in Las Heras highlighted that the current challenge is no longer limited to increasing inspections or requiring documentation, but also involves creating regulatory mechanisms capable of adapting to highly diverse productive realities.
During the meeting, the Mining Environmental Authority emphasized the simplification of procedures and the need to develop processes that are “accessible, gradual, and adapted to the territorial and productive reality” of each operation.
This issue is becoming one of the central pillars of Mendoza’s new phase of mining organization and governance.
The incorporation of brickworks, quarries, and processing plants into the formal system has required Mendoza to expand management capabilities into activities where traditional technical oversight is more difficult due to geographic dispersion, historical informality, and limited operational scale.
The model also requires sustained territorial presence.
Unlike metal mining, where oversight is generally concentrated on specific, highly structured projects, third-category mining requires continuous interaction with small producers distributed across different departments and operating under very different conditions.
In this context, the provincial government has begun strengthening technical support programs designed not only to enforce compliance but also to facilitate progressive adaptation processes.
The strategy aims to reduce gray areas within the mining value chain and expand formalization levels without creating immediate operational disruptions for activities that supply a significant portion of the inputs required by Mendoza’s construction industry.
