He Government of Chilealmost two months after the announcement of a national lithium strategyhas published a 33-page document that provides details on the objectives of the policy, the timetable and the main expected milestones.
The copper giant Codelco and the national mining company Enami will obtain lithium exploration and exploitation permits before the end of the year. These licenses will only cover those salt flats where they already have projects in different stages of development.
The document details that today “only 7.5% is under some form of official protection” and, according to a study by Sernageomin, 63 saline environments have been identified, 45 of them salt flats and 18 salt lagoons.
In addition, that same body identified 18 salt flats as “of interest for a specific evaluation regarding their geological potential to host lithium projects.”
Tenders for lithium exploration will be opened to private companies in the first half of 2024, the document said. In cases where the results show mining potential, the company that carried out the exploration work will have preferential access to an exploitation license in association with a state company, Nacional del Litio.
The study also explains that the bidding process to select the companies that will carry out exploration in the salt flats “will be public, competitive and transparent”, but adds that “technical offers must include, among other things: reports and instruments to keep Updated status of the information collected, a proposal for a local value generation plan and productive chains, as well as the estimate of environmental impacts associated with each projectâ.
Source: Larepublica
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