Albemarle, one of the world's largest lithium producers, will increase this year the contribution to the Treasury for the concession to exploit the Salar de Atacama, said the company's vice president of External Affairs for Latin America and country manager of Albemarle Chile, Ignacio Mehech. Although he did not specify the figure, the executive did say that it will be higher than the US$ 650 million contributed in 2022.
The company admitted that they are looking with interest at the government's definition of which will be the other salt flats in addition to Atacama – which it described as "the jewel in the crown" – where it will be possible to extract lithium.
The National Lithium Strategy, Mehech said, has two pillars, one is to fully respect the contracts in the Salar de Atacama – the Albemarle contract expires in 2043 – with a focus "on increasing opportunities with new technologies to continue expanding the industry."
The other is "the development of new salt flats," where the Ministry of Mining will declare which basins will be protected and "what will be the specific way in which companies will be able to partner with the State to develop these salt flats that are strategic," he said.
When asked if they are interested in operating new salt flats, the vice president of External Affairs for Latin America of the U.S. company said that "Albermarle is one of the largest lithium producers in the world and of course it is interested in growing production around the world and also in Chile."
He added that "Chile is a strategic country for us; we have been partners of the State for 43 years and of course we are interested in it and we are looking for opportunities to grow."