Bolivia, Peru race to bring on lithium projects

Bolivia and Peru hope to shake up the lithium market in the coming years as they develop large-scale deposits.

Bolivia is working on brine-based lithium deposits in the Salar de Uyuni, a 10,000km2 salt flat in the highland Potosi region. It has identified around 10mn t of reserves in 5pc of the area it has explored so far. It has another 20 salt flats that hold lithium.

In neighboring Peru, a subsidiary of Canada's Plateau Energy Metals announced in July the discovery of a hard rock lithium deposit in the highland Puno department, adjacent to identified uranium. The deposit has 2.4mn tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

Bolivia and Peru have the potential to upend the lithium market which is dominated by Australia, Chile and Argentina, in that order.

Bolivia's deputy energy minister for high-tech projects Luis Alberto Echazu told Argus that while his country is a small player now, that will change at the start of the next decade.

"We are going to have a few surprises in the coming months with reserves from another salt flat." he said.

Bolivia has a pilot project in operation, and will produce 240t of lithium carbonate this year. A Chinese consortium, led by Maison Engineering, is due to start work in August on a plant to initially produce 18,000 t/yr of lithium carbonate starting in November 2019.

President Evo Morales' government in April entered into an agreement with Germany's ACI Systems to invest $1.3bn to produce lithium hydroxide, cathodes and batteries.

"If we keep to the timeline, the hydroxide plant will be operating in two years, and by the end of 2021 Bolivia will be producing batteries... We will be the first Latin American country to manufacture batteries using our natural resources," Echazu said.

Plateau Energy Metals Ted O'Connor, director said the hard rock lithium deposit in Peru is as promising as brine reserves in neighboring countries.

"We have to physically mine the rock, which is different to the process used for brine. With brine they are getting 300 parts per million (ppm) of lithium, while we can get 3,000ppm. There are trade-offs, but cost wise we will be competitive," he said. The deposit has two rock types, lithium-rich volcanic tuffs and breccias.

The company has only explored of 20pc of the deposit and the lithium-bearing rock outcrops start on the surface and extend down 250m. "We believe the reserves will expand as we continue to drill," O'Connor said.

Plateau aims to complete the economic assessment this year and do a feasibility study in 2019. The goal will be to start production in 2021. Mining projects in Peru normally require years for permitting and other bureaucratic steps, but Plateau should be able to move faster because the lithium is in a non-metallic mineral, making the process simpler.