Miriam Viscusi (Junior Researcher G.E.O Environment)
Abstract
Chile is the second lithium producer in the world and it has the biggest reserves in the world. However, only recently – last year – president Gabriel Boric’s government launched a plan aiming to a strategic exploiting, producing and manufacturing of such critical mineral. The “national lithium strategy” is an ambitious plan of the State to catalogue and accordingly exploit strategic sites, in harmony with local communities that live around and through public-private partnerships. The strategy is a key-objective of Boric’s mandate (2022-2026), however it has a certain amount of complexity and it presents the same amount of opportunity and challenges. It involves different issues, like international economic development, environmental constraints and industrial strategies. This paper aims to provide an overlook of this subject.
1.Introduction
Lithium has become a critical mineral as soon as the industry realized it is a strategic resource in the global chain of renewable energy and decarbonization. It is fundamental in the component of electric vehicles, for example, and it has such a potential for the future that some scholars named it “the white gold”. Due to the high demand and high prices of the resource, countries there are rich in this material are seeing the opportunity to exploit it and to become leaders in this sector, by changing geopolitical and geoeconomically dynamics. This is the case for China, for example, that in opposition to Us, has developed a plan to become the first electric car producer in the world. By lacking this first resource, however, it has to rely on areas of the world - and therefore countries – there are rich of it. This is the case of some Latin American countries, first Chile.
Chile is the second lithium world producer, after Australia, but the country owns the biggest reserves in the world: 8,6 million tons, with over 9.200 reserves it amounts to the 45% of total reserves of the world (Bp, statistical review, 2022). Together with Argentina and Bolivia, Chile forms the so-called “lithium triangle”, a region rich in salares[1], the sites where the mineral can be extracted. Taking into account the above-mentioned global dynamics, a national strategy for lithium has been created at the beginning of current president Gabriel Boric’s government, in March 2023. There are multiple reasons why it has been delayed despite the richness in resources. One of the reasons is the lack of clarity about the mining code, which did not clarify the governance of the sites; moreover, the reason between the private license and the government management (the owner) was not well defined, therefore projects were complex to implement. And, finally, previous governments were also not interested in the power of such resource, which has only become critical in the latest years.
[1] The meaning of SALAR is a salt-encrusted depression (as in the nitrate fields of Chile) that may or may not be the basin of an evaporated lake.
2.Features of national lithium strategy in Chile
The national lithium strategy is a comprehensive national plan that aims to exploit the lithium resources of the country, fostering development of a strategic industry that provides one of the most important minerals of this century. The aim of this project is to make lithium the core of national industry, with a strong role for the government justified with the fact that lithium is a property of the State. The strategy involves capital, technology, sustainability and value creation and the participation of multiple stakeholders, included local communities. (Government of Chile)
The elements of the strategy involve multiple elements:
- dialogue with local communities and other stakeholders, in order to preserve environmental commitments
- creation of a national lithium company, which according to national law should be submitted and approved by the national congress
- creation of a network of protected salares and a network of salares that can be exploited by low-environmental impact strategies
- modernization of law regarding lithium and following phases (not only extraction but also production)
- creating a technology institute and public investigation in lithium
- incorporating the State into the activity of one of the site, Salar of Atacama
- inspection and exploration of other sites
Objective of the strategy include increasing wealth of the country; developing a sustainable industry and technology to include the country into a global value chain; fiscal sustainability. The last one is long-term one: global leadership by Chile in the global lithium production. The strategy involves all State administration, in particular ministries of Energy, Economy, and Environment and the national companies Codelco and Enami that are historically related to copper production. At the moment there are only two private actors in Chile lithium industry: the Us Albermarle and the Chilean Sqm, which are in charge of the Atacama salar.
At this stage several projects are running, which involve the most proficous salares of the country. Codelco obtained a memorandum of understanding with the Chilean private company Sqm about the Atacama Salar. Such agreement establishes that the company will exploit the site until 2025, a moment when the government will become a majority stakeholder. Until that moment, the two companies will continue and increase the lithium production. Atacama is a site with a high concentration of lithium reserves and it is the only site where there are currently active operations.
These projects are the ones considered strategic in national economic development, the ones in which the government will be majority stakeholder. Until that moment, operating companies pay some royalties to the government, like what happened in Altamaco in 2022, when Albermarle and Sqm paid five billion dollars to the State of Chile. Another site is in Maricunga one, where the state company Codelco carries on the extraction project named “Salar blanco”. Codelco engages currently with a Ceol subscribed for exploration and exploitation.
Enami, another national company, manages the salar “Alto andinos” by engaging in consultations with local communities. Enami is in charge of Salares grande, Los infieles, La isla and Aguilar. These sites are approximately the 49% of the total surface of lithium available in the country. Key instrument f the strategy are dialogue with local indigenous communities, in order to achieve modifications of the special contract about lithium operations (Ceol). Beyond the extraction of lithium, the government wants to develop also the refinement, the electrochemical processes and the production of batteries components.
3.Economic and environmental consequences
Economic consequences are the first reason why the government pushed this strategy. Due to high demand and high prices, lithium extraction and processing can further the wealth of the country and also transform its economy structure. The aim of the government in implementing such program is to be a leader in lithium industry and make lithium processing the first sector in the country economic structure. This will lead to potential competition with Argentina and China, two countries that by 2030 could produce more than Chile. Another economic consequence will be the strategic dependence from China. Two Chinese companies (Byd and Tsingshan) are already advanced in producing battery components production, which means they could search for further lithium sites.
Environmental consequences are linked with the exploitation of the salares and the lack of water they imply. According to the technical process of lithium extraction, water is necessary and some argue that it is taken from both the ecological system and the surrounding communities. (Jerez, Garces, Torres 2021)
4.Challenges
Various challenges are related to the development of a national strategy for lithium in Chile. First of all, economic competition. It may be that Chile becomes a leader but this could mean strong competition with other countries and lithium exporters, and also a strict schedule to implement every element of the strategy in a short time. Another possible challenge is indeed the delay in procedures: currently a project needs on average 7 years to be started and implemented; the government aims to reduce to 2 years this time but it is still uncertain if this will happen. Moreover, regulation and environmental licenses are still complex to let the market free operate. On the legal side, classification is still in progress and it could be more complex than expected due to various elements, like the decision according criteria about which sites need to be protected. Furthermore, national demand is still weak since Chile is not a leader in electric vehicles and components and it still has to structure exportation markets.
Information Content | ||
1 | Confirmed | Confirmed by other independent sources; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
2 | Presumably true | Not confirmed; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
3 | Maybe true | Not confirmed; reasonably logical in itself; coherent with some other information on the topic |
4 | Uncertain | Not confirmed; possible but not logical in itself; no other information on the topic |
5 | Improbable | Not confirmed; not logical in itself; contradicts with other information on the topic |
6 | Not able to be evaluated | No basis to evaluate the validity of the information |
Trustworthiness of the source | ||
A | Trustworthy | No doubt about authenticity, reliability or competence; has a history of total trustworthiness |
B | Normally trustworthy | Small doubts about authenticity, reliability or competence, nevertheless has a history of valid information in a majority of cases |
C | Sufficiently trustworthy | Doubts about authenticity, reliability or competence; however, has supplied valid information in the past |
D | Normally not trustworthy | Significant doubt about authenticity, reliability or competence, however has supplied valid information in the past |
E | Not trustworthy | Lack of authenticity, reliability or competence; history of invalid information |
F | Not able to be evaluated | No basis to evaluate the validity of the information |
Bibliography
British petroleum (2022). bp statistical review of world energy, 71st edition bp-stats-review-2022-full-report.pdf B1
Chile’s government (2022), “National lithium strategy”. Available at: Chile avanza con litio - Gob.cl (www.gob.cl) B1
Garside, M. (2022). “Leading Lithium producing countries worldwide 2021”, Statista. B1
Geology and mining service of the Government of Chile (2015), Wealth minerals lithium projects C1
Jerez, B. Garcés, I., Torres, R (2021) “Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility”, Political Geography, Volume 87, 2021, 102382, ISSN 0962-6298, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102382. B1
Kalantzakos, S. (2019). “The Geopolitics of Critical Minerals”, in Sustainable Energy Transition Series, Istituto affari internazionali (Iai). Available at: https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaip1927.pdf B1
Michalikova, K., Pierattini, M. (2023) The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy through the Case of Lithium: the European Perspective, Mondo internazionale. Available at: https://mondointernazionale.org/en/focus-allegati/the-geopolitics-of-renewable-energy-through-the-case-of-lithium-the-european-perspective C1
Dorn, M., Peyré, F. (2020). “Lithium as a Strategic Resource”, Journal of Latin American Geography. Vol. 19, No. 4 (OCTOBER 2020), pp. 68-90 University of Texas Press. B1