First battery-grade lithium plant inaugurated in Argentina
Last edited Thu Jul 4, 2024, 04:01 PM - Edit history (1)
French mining group Eramet and China's Tsingshan on Wednesday inaugurated a lithium production plant in Argentina to supply the booming electric car industry.
The site in the northwestern province of Salta represents an investment of US$870 million, Eramet said.
The plant is not a traditional mine nor one of the environmentally damaging salt flats from which the metal used in electric batteries is normally extracted in South America's so-called lithium triangle of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile (home to 60% of global lithium reserves).
Instead it uses an innovative "direct extraction" method, according to Eramet.
The plant is expected to produce up to 24,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate per year at full capacity, Eramet CEO Christel Bories told AFP -- enough for 600,000 electric vehicle batteries.
At: https://www.barrons.com/news/new-lithium-plant-inaugurated-in-argentina-d266b40c
Eramet CEO Christel Bories during the inauguration of its battery-grade lithium carbonate plant in Salta, Argentina, yesterday - a joint project began in 2021 with China's Tsingshan.
Mining industry analysts believe that far-right President Javier Milei's Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI) will spur new foreign investment in Argentina's mining sector, since it facilitates hard-currency availability; Argentine companies have long struggled with currency controls in the country.
Critics charge, however, that besides failing to guarantee hard-currency supply to foreign investors, the new RIGI legislation - Milei's first legislative accomplishment in nearly 7 months - may instead encourage money laundering, tax evasion and capital flight without materially improving on existing, business-friendly mining regulation dating from 1993 (at the height of the freewheeling Carlos Menem era).
Lithium carbonate output in Argentina rose eight-fold, to nearly 50,000 tons, from 2019 to 2023.
