Codelco Seeks Private Partner to Develop Maricunga Salt Flats

Written by Amir Richani for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)-- Chilean miner Codelco (Santiago) expects to expand its lithium operations by selecting a partner for its Maricunga project next year.

Codelco's President Maximo Pacheco said last week during the Latin American Cities Conference, hosted by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, that the company is seeking a partner to develop the Maricunga salt flats.

"Within 90 days, we expect non-binding offers and binding offers by the end of the year so that the company can be formed and the partner selected by the Codelco board during the first quarter of next year," said Pacheco.

Codelco will control the new joint venture with 51% of its shares. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can learn more by viewing the project report.

Maricunga, Chile's second-largest salt flat, contains significant lithium resources. Last year, the Chilean government announced the national lithium strategy, giving Codelco access to some of the country's most important salt flats.

This has triggered negotiations with lithium miners SQM (Santiago) and Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) (Charlotte, North Carolina), which operate in the Atacama and Maricunga salt flats, to grant Codelco access to their operations. In December last year, SQM and Codelco signed a deal to create a joint venture to start operations in 2025 in SQM's Atacama and Maricunga salt flats projects.

Also, Codelco expanded its presence in Maricunga after acquiring the Australian miner Lithium Power International (Sydney) in March this year that operated in the salt flat. This transaction gave Codelco access to the company's Maricunga lithium project.

Through Codelco's deal with SQM, the acquisition of Lithium Power International and its old Maricunga mining rights, the Chilean miner will control about 65% of the Maricunga salt flat mining area.

"If there is something distinctive in what we are doing as a country in terms of lithium, it is that we are not only aiming to increase our production; we are not only aiming to bring new technology for lithium extraction; nor that we are going to use less water. In some way, we are creating a public-private model that many people view with distrust," said Pacheco about Codelco's push to develop joint ventures across lithium projects.

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