Mexico’s Mining Chamber Presses Sheinbaum to Restart Concessions
Mexico · MINING
Key Facts
- —Demand CAMIMEX wants Mexico mining concessions granted again in areas of strategic potential.
- —Freeze No new concession titles have been issued since late 2018, El Economista reports.
- —Investment Mining spending fell 3.3% in 2025 to US$4.896 billion, CAMIMEX says.
- —Jobs Sector employment fell 4% to 400,057 posts by December 2025.
- —Stalled The chamber counts roughly US$11 billion of projects waiting on authorisations.
The chamber has a president, a date and a number. The government has a policy it has not moved from.
Mexico mining concessions have not been granted since late 2018. The Cámara Minera de México (CAMIMEX), the country’s mining chamber, wants that changed.
What the chamber is asking for
The request sits in CAMIMEX’s Informe Anual 2026, the annual report presented on 3 August 2026. It asks the state to reactivate new mining concessions in areas of strategic potential.
The chamber frames it around the joint review of the T-MEC, the Mexico-United States-Canada trade agreement. It also wants a mining and critical minerals chapter added to that treaty.
CAMIMEX restated the demand around the Ninth National Mining Congress in Durango in late August 2026. Its director general, Karen Flores, and a Peñoles executive spoke at that event.
The chamber also wants exploration incentives that draw private money into existing titles. Separately it asked President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government for a plan to expand mineral refining.
How long the freeze has run
Mexico mining concessions have not been issued since late 2018, according to El Economista. That covers the whole of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term and Sheinbaum’s first two years.
The freeze began as policy rather than law. López Obrador said in 2021 that no new exploration concessions would be granted.
The 2023 reform then turned much of that stance into statute. CAMIMEX president Pedro Rivero González says grants have been thin ever since the law appeared.
The state has lately been taking titles back rather than handing them out. Mexican media reported that the Secretaría de Economía, the economy ministry, began cancelling 805 concessions in September 2025.
What the 2023 mining law actually says
The reform was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 8 May 2023. It renamed the Ley Minera as the Ley de Minería and rewrote how titles are awarded.
Article 13 says the ministry will grant concessions only through a public tender. Article 15 cuts the term to thirty years, with a single extension of twenty-five years.
Article 6 bars concessions in protected natural areas and in zones without available water. It also requires prior, free and informed consultation to obtain the consent of indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities.
One thing the reform did not do is ban open-pit mining. No such prohibition appears in the Constitution, and a 2024 initiative to add one has not passed.
The law also still lacks its implementing regulation, three years after publication. Civil society groups say that gap blocks sanctions, and the chamber says it blocks certainty.
The numbers the chamber leans on
CAMIMEX put mining investment at US$4.896 billion in 2025, down 3.3% on 2024. Spending on brand-new developments fell 49.2%, and project expansion fell 47.8%.
The chamber forecasts US$6.402 billion for 2026, a rise of 30.8%. Rivero says roughly US$11 billion sits idle in projects still waiting for authorisations.
Production value hit a record 379.29 billion pesos (US$22.36 billion) in 2025, up 21.2%. That uses the Banco de México FIX rate of 16.9660 pesos per dollar on 26 August 2026.
Mining gross domestic product (GDP) still fell 3.2% in 2025, a third straight annual decline. The sector was 2.93% of national output, against 3.27% in 2022, per INEGI, the national statistics agency.
Mining and metals exports reached US$30.642 billion in 2025, up 19.8%, with a US$13.747 billion surplus. Sector employment fell 4% to 400,057 posts by December 2025.
Where the government stands
Mexico mining concessions are close to a settled question for the president. In June 2025 Sheinbaum said no new titles would be granted, and Mexican media reported the same line in 2026.
In February 2026 she announced that more than 200 concessions would return to the state. She said companies were voluntarily handing back titles that were not in production.
The tone is not uniformly hostile. Economy minister Marcelo Ebrard said in November 2025 that the government wants mining activity reactivated.
Ebrard pointed to three environmental permits finally granted that year. The Servicio Geológico Mexicano, the state geological survey, was also sent to explore in four states.
The case against reopening
Water is the sharpest argument against new titles. The 2023 law already bars concessions in zones without available water, reflecting years of local disputes.
Community groups want the freeze kept and the rules tightened. The collective Cambiémosla Ya has campaigned for the missing regulation and against a critical minerals push.
It argues that without that regulation, authorities cannot cancel titles after fatal accidents or ecological damage. It cites the 2014 Sonora river spill and a fatal collapse at a Sinaloa mine.
Indigenous consent is now a legal gate rather than a courtesy. The applicant pays for the consultation, and the tender winner must sign an agreement with the community.
What this means for investors
Mexico mining concessions are not the only bottleneck, but they are the first one. Without new titles, exploration money shifts to buying ground that someone already holds.
CAMIMEX counted 33 mining transactions in Mexico during 2025, or 20.5% of all national deals. It links that pattern directly to the absence of new greenfield ground.
Existing projects still move forward. CAMIMEX counts 588 projects with foreign participation across 30 states, 233 of them at the exploration stage.
The courts have not helped claimants either. Mexico’s Supreme Court denied constitutional challenges to the 2023 law in October 2025, leaving the concession rules intact.
The legal backstop and its limits
Treaty cover is thinner than many investors assume. Under the T-MEC, mining is not a covered sector, so the wider arbitration route does not apply.
United States investors may still arbitrate national treatment, most-favoured-nation and direct expropriation claims. They must first exhaust Mexican courts or wait thirty months.
Canadian companies account for 22.5% of Mexican mining output, on CAMIMEX figures. They sit outside that annex entirely and depend on other treaties instead.
One recent award shows the odds. In July 2026 a World Bank tribunal rejected almost all of a Vulcan Materials unit’s claim over its Quintana Roo quarry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can companies still obtain Mexico mining concessions today?
No new titles have been issued since late 2018. The 2023 law routes any new grant through a public tender.
Is open-pit mining banned in Mexico?
No. The Constitution carries no such ban, and a 2024 initiative to add one has not been approved.
What would restarting Mexico mining concessions unlock?
CAMIMEX says roughly US$11 billion of projects await authorisations. It also forecasts mining investment of US$6.402 billion for 2026.
Connected Coverage
Peru’s Mining Boom: Investment Up 42.7%, Not 74%
Mexico’s Public Debt Hits Record US$1.11 Trillion, 51% of GDP
Sources
- www.eleconomista.com.mx
- www.eleconomista.com.mx
- www.eleconomista.com.mx
- www.eleconomista.com.mx
- www.eleconomista.com.mx
- www.camimex.org.mx
- www.camimex.org.mx
- www.diputados.gob.mx
- www.diputados.gob.mx
- www.banxico.org.mx
- www.elfinanciero.com.mx
- www.educaoaxaca.org
- ustr.gov
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