Bolivia Holds Key To Lithium, The Battery Car Metal

Minor metal lithium is set to charge ahead to become the top material for batteries and vital for electric transport, but supplying any spike in demand could be fraught with difficulties.

Bolivia, a poor but resource-rich country governed for the past three years by leftist Evo Morales, has about 50 percent of the world’s lithium deposits at about 5.4 million tonnes.
But Morales has an uneasy relationship with the United States and big business — having already nationalized energy, mining and telecommunications companies.

“It’s not open to investment,” said Charles Kernot, a mining analyst at Evolution Securities. “If you can’t get agreement from the Bolivian authorities, then no major mining company would be able to get in and develop the projects.”

“I would be cautious … the geology is pretty straight forward, it’s just the politics of getting in to develop the asset.”

Despite Morales’ anti-capitalist rhetoric, some miners are already vying for control of Bolivia’s mineral riches, with the amount produced currently in the country negligible.

Global lithium carbonate supply was approximately 100,000 tonnes in 2008, up 2,000 tonnes from 2007, while consumption was a little higher at 105,000 tonnes — up 2 percent year-on-year.

“Some far-sighted companies are already attempting to secure the rights to mine lithium in Bolivia’s Uyuni salt flats,” said Carl Firman, an analyst at Virtual Metals, adding that the metal is mined as a by-product in clays, brines, salts or hard rock.

“This will be fraught by political complexities, as Bolivia will not simply allow its lithium to be mined and exported elsewhere for downstream processing and fabrication,” he added.

Planet Ark