The government of Bolivian President Luis Arce announced this week the results of the pilot lithium extraction program in the South American country, which has the world's largest mineral reserves.
Two of the eight companies in the program were eliminated, so only the remaining six will be able to seek to work with the state company to extract and produce the mineral.
The six companies that will go to a second stage of the process are the Chinese Contemporary Amperex Technology in association with China Molybdenum Company, Fusion Enertech, Citic Guoan Group and TBEA Group;
the Russian Uranium One and the American Lilac Solutions, the director of the parastatal company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB), Carlos Ramos, announced at a press conference.
The companies eliminated were EnergyX from the US and Tecpetrol from Argentina.
"The next step is to meet with the companies so that we can present our sovereign conditions regarding lithium," said Ramos.
Currently, the law allows YLB to work with both foreign and national private companies.
However, Bolivia lacks a regulatory framework regarding royalties and taxes, which is necessary for a private company to operate.
The Government is expected to send an initiative to Congress to fill the legal loopholes.
“As a State, as a country, we must protect this natural resource and ensure that the majority of the benefits go to Bolivians,” said Ramos.
"We are going to propose the conditions under which the companies could work with YLB in order to continue the industrialization process and advance in the implementation and installation of lithium industries in the different salt flats."
In the pilot program, the companies worked with samples from the Bolivian salt flats, whose characteristics are unique in the industry, to find the technology with the highest percentage of lithium recovery possible.
The results showed a recovery of 80%, and, in the case of some companies, 90%.
YLB also took into account water consumption, purity, energy used, technology flexibility, capacity and use of chemical substances, among other indicators.
In the final stretch of the pilot program, weeks before announcing the results, sources reported at least three dismissals of personnel with high technical knowledge at YLB, raising suspicions of a politicization of the process.
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