“These works are being carried out in order to achieve the implementation of these plants, these investments, in the salt pans of Coipasa (Oruro) and Uyuni (Potosí). It will initially run for six months,” YLB President Carlos Ramos told Bolivia TV.
He described that at this stage several “supplements are being worked on to cover all the risks and to develop the specific industry in the salt pans”.
Ramos explained that a specific design is required for Uyuni and another for Coipasa and that the plan is to start construction after those six months once all of these complementary studies have been completed.
Ramos and the representative of the Chinese consortium CATL BRUNP & CMOC (CBC), Qinghua Zhou, signed an agreement on January 20 in a public document at the Casa Grande del Pueblo (seat of government) for the installation of two plants with the technology of direct extraction of Lithium with an investment of over $1.83 million.
This negotiation process began in April 2021 with a public call announced by President Luis Arce and socialized by YLB.
The authorities expect the work to be completed by the end of 2024 and to be operational from the first quarter of the following year.
International market sources indicate that over the past 16 months, a ton of lithium carbonate has increased from five thousand dollars to 76 thousand units of this currency, and it is estimated that the average price will stabilize in the range of 35 thousand to 40 thousand dollars in the coming years .
Based on this data, Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy Franklin Molina declared on January 24 that by 2025 Bolivia will earn around five thousand dollars from the export of every ton of industrialized lithium.
The Bolivian authorities insist that the state-owned company YLB controls the mineral extraction chain 100%, which means that an alleged supply of this resource to foreign companies is ruled out.
jf/jpm