Moscow concluded a big “lithium deal” with Bolivia, as part of which the Russian company “Uranium One Group” will invest 450 million dollars in a pilot lithium mining project in that country.
This contract is already the second of its kind that was signed with a subsidiary of the Russian state concern – Rosat, because in June of last year the two parties agreed on the construction of an industrial complex for lithium carbonate in the area of the Pastos Grandes volcanic crater.
Karla Calderon, who heads Bolivia’s state-owned lithium company, said the venture in the country’s hills will have three phases: in the first phase, the goal is to produce 1,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year, and in the second phase, that will increase to 8,000 tons per year, and an additional 5,000 tons is planned in the third phase.
”The focus is on causing as little damage as possible to the human environment, so the project will serve to conduct research aimed at proving the technological sustainability of future plants,” said Calderon.
But Russia is not the only one that could “operate” in Bolivia; success there could also be achieved by China, namely the local concern “Contemporary Amperex Technology”, which leads the partners who intend to invest 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in the construction of a facility for the exploitation of lithium.
An expert on Latin American-Russian relations, Vladimir Rovinsky, from the Colombian University of Icesi, says that “the competition for lithium is fierce.”
”It seems that strategic alliances are being made that go hand in hand with the inclinations of the current governments, for example, in the current case the inclination of the government of Bolivia towards Chinese and Russian companies. In the end, these alliances are short-term, since economic logic dictates that economic interests take precedence over fleeting affinities,” said Rovinsky.
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, also raises hopes among partners outside of Russia and China. ”Our visits to the European Union (EU), Brazil and the BRICS countries clearly showed that there is a great interest in our lithium,” said Arce.
E.Dz.
