One of the companies investigated in the
Los Sauces / Hotesur
case as a tenant of the Kirchner properties in Puerto Madero, in an unexpected way, is becoming a key player for the
lithium market
.
It went from not having gas to produce in 2022 to making million-dollar shipments at the request of the mining companies that in the north of the country explore and compete for this metal demanded by the world and also
known as “white gold
. ”
Everything transform.
The story also has an event that brought it to the surface.
In November of last year
, a convoy of ten cars with 250 tons of sodium carbonate left San Antonio Oeste, in Río Negro, and traveled
2,300 kilometers
until it arrived with the cargo in Catamarca.
Never before had a charging formation traveled such a distance in Argentina.
The Patagonian Train participated in the
historic maneuver
, on the route from San Antonio Oeste to Bahía Blanca;
the company Ferrosur Roca for the trip from Bahía Blanca to Buenos Aires;
and the Nuevo Central Argentino, for the final stretch.
Almost no one knew about this in Argentina, but those who are the true owners of the movement did experience it with excitement:
the businessmen Cristóbal López and Fabián De Souza.
The owners of the Indalo group, staunch defenders of Kirchnerism, were now officiating, not as media owners, but as the maximum beneficiaries of a captive business.
They stood as the only regional producers of
Solvay soda
, a sodium carbonate that is key to separating lithium from brine during the extraction process.
De Souza and López had the product, which is extracted from limestone quarries, but the interjurisdictional agreements to link the railway sections were lacking.
“They were given the roads and a million-dollar business was built,”
an official from Arabela Carreras' administration as governor of Río Negro explained to
Clarín .
"Cristobal is exultant. He only talks about two things: how Macri persecuted him and the soda for lithium," added another source close to the businessman.
ALPAT, view from the air.
Alcalis de la Patagonia (ALPAT) is the only sodium carbonate producing company in South America.
Its plant is installed at the end of Punta Delgado, 2.5 km from San Antonio Oeste in the province of Río Negro, in front of the Las Grutas resort.
It belonged to the State until 2004 when businessmen
related to the then president, Néstor Kirchner, bought it.
“At the time it belonged to the State and in November 2004, when Néstor Kirchner's government took office, it passed into the hands of Fabián De Souza and Cristóbal López.
The goal was always to produce sodium carbonate, which is known as solvay soda or soda ash.
It was maintained throughout Kirchnerism with good performance.
During all that time, production was for the glass industry, for the manufacturers of bottles, fine crystals and for the shampoo and detergent industry,”
reviews Fabián Muñoz
, general secretary of the Union of Workers of the Chemical and Petrochemical Industries. of San Antonio Oeste.
“In Macri's time, things got ugly for ALPAT workers.
Carbonate imports from China were opened, which is not the best quality.
But the owners were also arrested.
We
get to collect our salary in four installments
.
We supported the plant as best we could during those four years,” says the union leader.
“With the owners in prison, production was only done to pay salaries and suppliers.”
The ALPAT plant never rests.
Produces 24 hours a day.
Workers work shifts of 4 days of work and four days of rest.
With Alberto Fernández, De Sousa and López were once again free to operate.
A time of recovery was coming.
But the pandemic arrived, which slowed down agreements and projects.
Until lithium appears, as a crucial mineral for the immediate future.
“In mid-2021, De Souza told me about this great possibility,” says Muñoz.
And it came to fruition last year, when the first convoy left for Catamarca, a historic event.
Then four more came out and they are preparing a fifth.
Each time there were larger shipments
.
They depended on glass production, but not anymore.
Lithium benefited us all.
“It is a priority.”
The head of the Indalo Group, Cristóbal López.
Muñoz says that since then ALPAT workers have lived a different reality.
The 360 members of his union earn an average of
one and a half million pesos
as a pocket salary.
They are paid on time, on the fourth business day of the month and that is later noticed on the streets of San Antonio.
“Everyone spending money, making purchases, is a very good salary, but be careful, this is Patagonia and everything is more expensive,” he warns.
During the period 2016 - 2020, lithium mining alone imported 337,901 tons of sodium carbonate, that is, 34% of total imports of this chemical compound.
By adding the imports of soda ash from lithium producers together with the production data of this alkaline metal, it is obtained for the period 2016-2020 that the import prices of Soda Ash average an approximate value of US$ 300 per ton.
Sector sources consulted by
Clarín
estimate a theoretical requirement of
345,100 to 493,000
tons of sodium carbonate annually to satisfy the projected production of lithium for 2030.
Projections for lithium
Lithium is one of the essential elements for the transition to a cleaner energy matrix and the electrification of transportation.
It has multiple uses, but its main purpose is the manufacture of batteries.
Demand is expected to continue growing as countries further
reduce their carbon emissions.
Alkalis from Patagonia.
In the so-called
"Lithium Triangle"
, one of the most prosperous regions for the development of this resource, Argentina (4th) and Chile (2nd) are the main regional players, while Australia (1st) and China (3 °) are other important global players.
Two enterprises in Jujuy and Catamarca are fully operational, extracting and exporting the product.
A third, in Salta, is about to begin.
The industry cannot stop.
In mining there is talk of
an opportunity period of
approximately 15 years.
From then on, demand would begin to decline due to the emergence of new materials.
For many it is now or never.
Currently, ALPAT says it produces more than 210 thousand tons of sodium carbonate per year.
They are managing private loans to expand the plant in two stages: first to bring production to 330 thousand tons and then to 550 thousand per year.
They seek to meet national demand and export to countries in Latin America and the world.
Cristóbal and his partner seem to have fallen at the appointed time at the indicated time.