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boom","bolivia-selects-lithium-partners-as-it-chooses-dle-route-to-tap-battery-boom","article/bolivia-selects-lithium-partners-as-it-chooses-dle-route-to-tap-battery-boom",{"_uid":547,"date":548,"tags":549,"editor":550,"content":560,"excerpt":667,"featured":51,"reporter":668,"_editable":672,"component":673,"seo_title":543,"categories":674,"visibility":683,"author_company":49,"featured_image":684,"seo_description":667,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":689,"formattedArticleDate":690},"7f50f5fa-5d85-4618-beb8-ee56cd79a82d","2022-06-16 00:00",[],[551],{"slug":552,"name":553,"content":554},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":555,"image":556,"bio":558,"linkedin":559},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":557},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":561,"content":562},"doc",[563,570,575,580,585,590,595,602,607,612,617,622,627,632,637,642,647,652,657,662],{"type":564,"attrs":565,"content":566},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[567],{"text":568,"type":569},"Bolivia has short-listed six companies to help it extract lithium, in a step that could eventually open up the world’s largest potential resource of the battery metal.","text",{"type":564,"attrs":571,"content":572},{"textAlign":49},[573],{"text":574,"type":569},"The country’s state-owned lithium producer said it would test direct-lithium extraction (DLE) technologies from the six companies on three different brine resources in the country. Four of the companies are from China, while one is from Russia and one from the US.",{"type":564,"attrs":576,"content":577},{"textAlign":49},[578],{"text":579,"type":569},"Bolivia has struggled to commercially produce lithium from its giant 4,000 square mile salar de Uyuni salt flats, falling behind neighbours Chile and Argentina. The country’s president Luis Arce, who was elected in 2020, has promised to back new technologies that promise more efficient extraction to try to catch up.",{"type":564,"attrs":581,"content":582},{"textAlign":49},[583],{"text":584,"type":569},"But almost all of the six companies have yet to produce lithium on a commerical scale from brine deposits, and the technologies are still not proven.",{"type":564,"attrs":586,"content":587},{"textAlign":49},[588],{"text":589,"type":569},"Benchmark does not expect meaningful supply from Bolivia using DLE to come to the market until 2030, slowing ramping up to 15,000 tonnes of LCE by 2033.",{"type":564,"attrs":591,"content":592},{"textAlign":49},[593],{"text":594,"type":569},"“It’s a long term play: view this as a good for R&D but far from any meaningful production,” Simon Moores, chief executive of Benchmark, said. “If Bolivia is going to be successful, they need the best technical lithium brains in the business that will help build a local ecosystem and knowledge base. They need lithium majors that have been there and done it. They still haven’t got that.”",{"type":596,"attrs":597,"content":599},"heading",{"level":598,"textAlign":49},4,[600],{"text":601,"type":569},"A question of chemistry",{"type":564,"attrs":603,"content":604},{"textAlign":49},[605],{"text":606,"type":569},"Bolivia has struggled to produce lithium in part due to the presence of impurities in the brine beneath its salt flats such as magnesium. DLE technologies, however, promise to be able to process the brine cost effectively into lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide, without the need for large evaporation ponds used in Chile and Argentina.",{"type":564,"attrs":608,"content":609},{"textAlign":49},[610],{"text":611,"type":569},"“Conventional technology for lithium production will not work at scale in Bolivia. Too high magnesium for ponds and too little water available for absorbents,” David Snydacker, chief executive of Lilac Solutions, said on Twitter.",{"type":564,"attrs":613,"content":614},{"textAlign":49},[615],{"text":616,"type":569},"Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos Corporación (YLB), the state-owned lithium producer, said all six companies had achieved 80% lithium recovery or more from brine.",{"type":564,"attrs":618,"content":619},{"textAlign":49},[620],{"text":621,"type":569},"Shenzhen-based Fusion Enertech, one of the winners, says it can process brines with high magnesium-to-lithium ratios, and has produced around 30,000 tonnes per year of high-purity lithium from the Qarhan salt flat in China. It wants to build a plant in Bolivia with a capacity to produce 30,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate, it said in February.",{"type":564,"attrs":623,"content":624},{"textAlign":49},[625],{"text":626,"type":569},"Bolivia has three different brine resources: Salar de Uyuni, Salar de Coipasa, and Salar de Pastos Grandes. Some technologies work better on different brines, YLB said.",{"type":596,"attrs":628,"content":629},{"level":598,"textAlign":49},[630],{"text":631,"type":569},"The winning bids",{"type":564,"attrs":633,"content":634},{"textAlign":49},[635],{"text":636,"type":569},"YLB said it may eventually choose more than one of the six and will retain rights over the country’s lithium reserves.",{"type":564,"attrs":638,"content":639},{"textAlign":49},[640],{"text":641,"type":569},"The Chinese winners are state-owned Citic Guoan, battery producer CATL Brunp and miner CMOC, Xinjiang TBEA Group, and Fusion Enertech.",{"type":564,"attrs":643,"content":644},{"textAlign":49},[645],{"text":646,"type":569},"Uranium One from Russia also was successful, as was the startup Lilac Solutions from the US. Lilac is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, as well as BMW.",{"type":596,"attrs":648,"content":649},{"level":598,"textAlign":49},[650],{"text":651,"type":569},"Ten minutes too late",{"type":564,"attrs":653,"content":654},{"textAlign":49},[655],{"text":656,"type":569},"Texan startup Energy X and Argentinian energy company Tecpetrol did not make the final selection, however.",{"type":564,"attrs":658,"content":659},{"textAlign":49},[660],{"text":661,"type":569},"Energy X said in a statement it was ten minutes late in submitting its final report for the tender.",{"type":564,"attrs":663,"content":664},{"textAlign":49},[665],{"text":666,"type":569},"“EnergyX respects Bolivia’s sovereignty and final choice for whichever DLE company they want to ultimately work with, for any reason or no reason at all,” it said.","Bolivia has short-listed six companies to help it extract lithium, in a step that could eventually open up the world’s largest potential resource of the battery metal. The country’s state-owned lithium producer said it would test direct-lithium extraction (DLE) technologies from the six companies on three different brine resources in the country. Four of the […]",[669],{"slug":552,"name":553,"content":670},{"job_title":555,"image":671,"bio":558,"linkedin":559},{"filename":557},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"7f50f5fa-5d85-4618-beb8-ee56cd79a82d\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[675,678,681],{"slug":676,"name":677},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals",{"slug":679,"name":680},"geopolitics","Geopolitics",{"slug":682,"name":8},"lithium","private",{"id":49,"alt":685,"name":685,"focus":685,"title":685,"source":685,"filename":686,"copyright":685,"fieldtype":687,"meta_data":688,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/01fb73c4dc/bm-bolivia-lithium.jpg","asset",{"alt":685,"title":685,"source":685,"copyright":685},"Jun 16, 2022","16th June 2022",[],[],1781280286872]