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With more than half a year of delay, the country has announced the signing of the agreement between the state-owned Yacimientos del Litio Bolivianos (YLB) and the Chinese company CATL BRUNP & CMOC (CBC).
Bolivia has the largest quantified lithium evaporitic resources in the world in the Salar de Uyuni, in Potosí. The country ventured into the industrialization of these resources in 2013, through evaporation pools, which made it possible to start with the production of potassium chloride , lithium carbonate and even cathodes and lithium batteries on a pilot scale. In 2019, he canceled the joint-venture to exploit the lithium that he had created with a German company to exploit them, and already in 2021, he launched a new international call to extract lithium.
After going through several filters, eight companies (CATL BRUNP & CMOC, Fusion Enertech, EnergyX , Tecpetrol, Lilac Solutions, CITIC GUOAN/CRIG, TBEA Group and Uranium One Group, which are from the United States, China, Russia and Argentina) obtained permission to carry out piloting tests with brines that were delivered from the Uyuni, Pastos Grandes and Coipasa salt flats to demonstrate the effectiveness of their patents and accelerate the lithium industrialization processes.
In June 2022, from the Bolivian Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energies, they announced that it would be announced "next week which companies will participate in the extraction of lithium" . Seven months later, the country has announced the signing of the agreement between the state-owned Yacimientos del Litio Bolivianos (YLB) and the Chinese company CATL BRUNP & CMOC (CBC).
"Our state company YLB will be present throughout the production chain, from extraction, industrialization and product marketing," Bolivian President Luis Arce said at the presentation of the announcement.
No further details have been disclosed about the agreement or its date of application. |
