Sector
Mining
From the mine to the vessel: exploration, extraction, storage, shipment, import and trading of industrial and metallic minerals.
Minerals and markets
DEMSA was born trading high-grade iron ore and manganese from the Urucum mines, replacing imports that until then came from Australia and South Africa. On that basis it built a capability that today covers industrial minerals and applied rocks —sodium bentonite, barite, silica sands— on own and third-party deposits.
Trading combines exclusive representation of producers, import and export, and market development: the Argentine steel market, regional re-exports and, increasingly, Asian markets.
The flow now runs in both directions: DEMSA exports sodium bentonite to Mercosur for the oil and steel industries, and is developing the grinding and commercialisation of natural sodium bentonite from the Los Bisnietos deposit in Zapala.
Own deposits
The Los Bisnietos deposit, in the Zapala mining district of Neuquén, is the operation's own base: 27 hectares of natural sodium bentonite where DEMSA holds the concession, in one of the country's best areas for this mineral. It has direct application in the oil and steel industries —drilling and iron pelletising— and an established export market, on top of supplying the Vaca Muerta region.
Alongside it are partnership agreements with provincial producers in Neuquén and Río Negro: they contribute the deposits and local operations; DEMSA, the working capital, the processing and milling equipment, and access to export markets. It is the same structure the whole platform is built on.
Mining logistics
A mining project is worth what its logistics are worth. DEMSA designs and operates the full chain: road transport from the deposit, barge loading, convoys along the waterway, transhipment at the lower Paraná ports, storage and loading onto ocean-going vessels.
Mining platform
Mercosur – European Union mineral logistics platform
The rapprochement between Mercosur and the European Union is not merely a trade instrument: it changes where Europe looks for its industrial minerals and energy. Argentina is positioned as a supply platform, and integration with Brazil adds industrial, technological and logistics capacity that does not exist at that scale on this side.
On that window DEMSA is structuring a platform connecting mine, processing and international market in a single productive corridor: Neuquén → Río Negro → processing → export.
- General Roca 2 Industrial Park, Río Negro: 15 hectares granted by the municipality for the mining export logistics park.
- Own sodium bentonite deposit in Zapala plus partnership agreements with producers in Neuquén and Río Negro.
- Selection and grinding plant in the Zapala Free Trade Zone: since output is exclusively for export, the regime allows full tax exemption, extending to imported equipment.
- Silica sands for fracking, on provincial areas and in partnership with a logistics operator of the oil industry.
- Atlantic gateway through San Antonio Este and the Bahía Blanca Free Trade Zone Port, where DEMSA operates as importer and distributor.
- Pacific gateway through the Zapala – Neuquén corridor into Chile, under a framework agreement with the Neuquén Investment Agency.
- Operating base at Porto do Açu, Rio de Janeiro, for receiving and distributing Argentine minerals in Brazil.
- Agreements with industrial suppliers in Brazil and China for mills, processing plants and engineering, with long-term financing.
The advantage is not the plan: it is what is already built. The chain is partially structured, which lowers capital investment, shortens implementation times and reduces operating risk. This is a model in execution, not a conceptual one.
Featured projects
Projects in this sector
Bentonite grinding plant
Export, grinding and commercialisation of natural sodium bentonite from the Los Bisnietos deposit in Zapala, Neuquén, for the Brazilian market.
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Mineral export to Brazil
Export of sodium bentonite to the Mercosur market for various industries, with ore from our own deposit.
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Urucum mineral imports
The operation that replaced iron ore and manganese imports from Australia and South Africa with Brazilian ore coming down the waterway.
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Compañías Mineras Integradas S.A.
An integrated production, logistics and market system for industrial minerals and applied rocks, on own and third-party deposits.
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