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Chilean lawmakers on Tuesday went to court to block the outgoing government from awarding a lithium mining contract, for which SQM and Albemarle, two of the world's largest producers of ultralight battery metals
, are bidding.
Lawmakers from Chile's PPD asked the Santiago Court of Appeal to halt the bidding process
, which will end in mid-January.
Chile should not repeat the privatization of its resources, they said, and that lithium is an important component of
batteries for electric vehicles.
"President Sebastián Piñera's government is putting the overall interests of the country at risk," said
Raúl Soto, one of the initiators of the appeal.
"This move once again puts commercial and private interests above the interests of all Chileans and, under state management, has natural resources as strategic and important as lithium for Chile's future," he added
.
In October 2021, Chile announced the auction process to offer five 80,000 tonnes of quotas totaling 400,000 tonnes to domestic and overseas companies for lithium metal exploration and production contracts
for batteries.
Chilean SQM and giant Albemarle are two
of the five companies competing for contracts.
However, delegates said the tender also violated the rule of consulting indigenous communities near any mining site in the Atacama desert in the north of the
country.
In response, the Chilean government defended the tender process, saying it had been transparent and saying the companies would be the state's partners
in mining enterprises.
It said the five quotas in the tender were only equivalent to 4.
4 percent of Chile's known metal reserves, which would not prevent the creation of a state-owned lithium company
.
"Until 2016, Chile was the world's largest producer with a 37% market share
.
But today we fell to 31% and we have been overtaken by Australia
.
If we don't manage to increase production, we will fall to 17% by 2030", Mines and Energy Minister Juan Carlos Jobet wrote
on Twitter.
The official said the government plans to hold talks with Boric's team, which will take office in March, to review the context
of the process.
Chilean lawmakers on Tuesday went to court to block the outgoing government from awarding a lithium mining contract, for which SQM and Albemarle, two of the world's largest producers of ultralight battery metals
, are bidding.
Lawmakers from Chile's PPD asked the Santiago Court of Appeal to halt the bidding process
, which will end in mid-January.
Chile should not repeat the privatization of its resources, they said, and that lithium is an important component of
batteries for electric vehicles.
"President Sebastián Piñera's government is putting the overall interests of the country at risk," said
Raúl Soto, one of the initiators of the appeal.
"This move once again puts commercial and private interests above the interests of all Chileans and, under state management, has natural resources as strategic and important as lithium for Chile's future," he added
.
In October 2021, Chile announced the auction process to offer five 80,000 tonnes of quotas totaling 400,000 tonnes to domestic and overseas companies for lithium metal exploration and production contracts
for batteries.
Chilean SQM and giant Albemarle are two
of the five companies competing for contracts.
However, delegates said the tender also violated the rule of consulting indigenous communities near any mining site in the Atacama desert in the north of the
country.
In response, the Chilean government defended the tender process, saying it had been transparent and saying the companies would be the state's partners
in mining enterprises.
It said the five quotas in the tender were only equivalent to 4.
4 percent of Chile's known metal reserves, which would not prevent the creation of a state-owned lithium company
.
"Until 2016, Chile was the world's largest producer with a 37% market share
.
But today we fell to 31% and we have been overtaken by Australia
.
If we don't manage to increase production, we will fall to 17% by 2030", Mines and Energy Minister Juan Carlos Jobet wrote
on Twitter.
The official said the government plans to hold talks with Boric's team, which will take office in March, to review the context
of the process.
