South America steps up efforts to turn lithium into batteries

[carride]

South America Steps Up Efforts to Turn Lithium Into Batteries

South American nations are stepping up efforts to propel themselves further down the electric-vehicle supply chain by leveraging their vast mineral wealth, expanding processing capacity, and targeting vehicle manufacturing.

www.bloomberg.com

Republished without the paywall at batimes

South America steps up efforts to turn lithium into batteries

Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil plan to coordinate action on turning more of the region’s mined lithium into battery chemicals, as well as moving into manufacturing of batteries and EVs.

www.batimes.com.ar

 

[Rich One]

The recent Lithium production by country . Argentina is 4th with 6% of the world production , Bolivia isn't mentioned..! Chile will be 2nd, for a long time.... but growing fast . Perhaps investors will build batteries sooner in Chile. Because of ease of investment and operations. Due to recent Argentina restrictions.

Government may allocate domestic market lithium quota - Buenos Aires Herald

Flurry of lithium initiatives includes quotas, battery factories, electric vehicle law and tax changes

buenosairesherald.com

Rank	Country	2021 Production (tonnes)	% of Total
	Total	105,984	100%
#1	Australia	55,416	52%
#2	Chile	26,000	25%
#3	China	14,000	13%
#4	Argentina	5,967	6%
#5	Brazil	1,500	1%
#6	Zimbabwe	1,200	1%
#7	Portugal	900	1%
#8	United States	900	1%
	Rest of World	102	0.1%

 

[FrankPintor]

Bolivia has reserves, but no production to speak of? They would do well to swallow their pride and take what's on offer from Chile, transport links and a free port on the Pacific. That could catapult them into the top LatAm tier of countries, but... fat chance...

I think Chile's main advantage is how easy it is to get the lithium to the ports. This could be both an advantage (easy to move the lithium out) and a disadvantage (no need to process anything, just load the salt onto the ships and send them off to China). In Argentina's case there really needs to be some local processing to reduce the volume to transport down to the river ports.

 

[Rich One]

I think Chile's main advantage is how easy it is to get the lithium to the ports. This could be both an advantage (easy to move the lithium out) and a disadvantage (no need to process anything, just load the salt onto the ships and send them off to China). In Argentina's case there really needs to be some local processing to reduce the volume to transport down to the river ports.

Both countries Arg and Chile are dead set on adding Value , i.e. exporting finished Batteries. Not feasible to export unrefined mineral . Lithium mineral must be processed for battery manufacturing.

Lithium from Australia comes from ore mining, while in Chile and Argentina lithium comes from salt deserts, so-called salars. The extraction of raw materials from salars functions as follows: lithium-containing saltwater from underground lakes is brought to the surface and evaporated in large basins. The remaining saline solution is further processed in several stages until the lithium is suitable for use in batteries.