Mexico’s President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has assured that his government is negotiating an agreement with a private company to recover a lithium production concession granted in the state of Sonora before the nationalization of the metal in 2022.
“It’s the property of the nation’s lithium, it’s owned by the Mexicans; however, there is one company that has done exploratory work in a very small and very limited area. So they are looking to find an agreement with them not to initiate legal proceedings, but rather to seek an agreement, a conciliation,” the president said.
He added that Economy Secretary Raquel Buenrostro is in charge of talks with the executive chairman of the lithium company, whose name he did not mention.
The most advanced lithium project in Sonora is controlled by China’s Ganfeng Lithium and construction is expected to begin in 2024.
When asked what the company was asking to return the concession, AMLO replied, “They want to have the mine, but they don’t have all the permits. Moreover, the law that has been approved is that this strategic mineral belongs to the Nation, to the people, and not to individuals, to companies”.
This month, the president indicated that he would be in Sonora between February 17 and 19 to deliver the first concessions to a state company that he did not mention, but which should be LitioMx, created in last August after the reform of the mining law.
Two weeks ago, AMLO announced that his administration was considering redefining the terms of delivery of the lithium concessions used before the nationalization in order to pave the way for a litiferous exploitation in Sonora. He added that there were only “one or two” companies in this situation.
The Mexican Geological Service (SGM) pointed out last year that 18 states in the country have lithium deposits and that of Sonora in particular would contain one of the largest in the world, even if it would be accumulations of soft metal in clay deposits, which present a much greater processing difficulty than the brines commonly found in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.
Organizations such as the Camimex mining chamber and the association of mining engineers, metallurgists and geologists AIMMGM said the Mexican state had no experience in lithium mining and warned that the clay resource is at very low concentrations, which makes it economically unfeasible. with current technologies.
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