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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Chile, once the world’s lithium leader, loses ground to rivals

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SANTIAGO: As automakers race to a clean-energy future, Chile looked to be in the catbird seat. The South American nation possesses the world’s largest reserves of lithium, a lightweight metal crucial to manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles. Chile’s lithium is high quality and cheap to produce.


But the nation’s output has barely budged in recent years. Chile’s two lone producers, SQM and Albemarle Corp, have struggled to boost production to capitalize on strong global demand, which is widely expected to triple by 2025.


Chile’s government, meanwhile, has been slow to allow new players to enter the market. And indigenous groups and activists are opposing new projects, worried about environmental impacts.


The upshot: Chile is losing ground to competitors.


Australia in 2017 surpassed Chile to become the world’s top lithium supplier. Neighbouring Argentina is positioned to gain fast, with at least a dozen projects in the pipeline.


While Chile remains an important producer, the market is anxious and investors are looking elsewhere to boost supply, analysts said.


Chile “is disappointing the industry” and if expansion projects there continue to stumble, it could cause “uncertainty and complexity in supply chains,” US-based independent lithium industry consultant Joe Lowry said.


Mining Minister Baldo Prokurica earlier this year told reporters the government is doing everything possible to “ensure lithium and other battery metals are being exploited.”


Santiago-based SQM saw its stock dive more than 6 per cent on May 23 when it announced it would delay a planned expansion in Chile’s Atacama salt flat until the end of 2021. That project would allow the company to produce as much as 120,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate, more than double its current production.


Chief Financial Officer Gerardo Illanes told Reuters in an email that the project, albeit delayed, would give the company the “flexibility we need in a fast-growing market like lithium.” Rival Albemarle, the world’s No. 1 lithium producer, earlier this month said its 2019 production would be roughly flat from last year’s levels.


Eric Norris, Albemarle’s lithium division president, said the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company was pushing forward with Atacama expansion projects and said “we maintain a very strong, positive and active relationship with Chilean regulators.” Some 1,150 kilometres (700 miles) north of Santiago, at SQM and Albemarle´s operations in the Atacama, rows of giant, rectangular holding ponds filled with metal-rich brine bake in the scorching sun.


Chile’s lithium is found in underground reservoirs of salty water. Miners have only to pump this valuable liquid to the surface. Mother Nature does the heavy lifting.


The area’s intense sunlight, low humidity and steady, hot winds evaporate most of the water, leaving behind a slurry of “white gold.” Chile’s perch on the Pacific Ocean makes it easy to export.


These advantages have given Chile a roughly 20 per cent share of global mine production for lithium, according to US Geological Survey figures. That is down from a 36 per cent share just 4 years ago.


The erosion stems in part from laws passed decades ago under then-dictator Augusto Pinochet. His government declared lithium to be a “strategic” resource because of its use in nuclear fission. Chile requires private miners to either partner with the state, as SQM and Albemarle have done, or obtain a special permit known as a CEOL to mine lithium on their own.


The problem, would-be miners say, is that the government has yet to provide guidelines for obtaining a CEOL. Nor has it announced a uniform royalty or tax scheme that would help investors gauge the risks.


That lack of clarity has spooked a number of foreign investors, according to Marcelo Awad, a Chilean executive with Wealth Minerals Ltd of Canada. “They say ‘We still don’t understand the rules of the game,’” Awad said. — Reuters


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