Is Chile losing ground in the lithium space?

The Salar de Atacama in northern Chile is the world’s largest and richest lithium resource, containing almost half the world’s known reserves, according to the United States Geological Survey. And the region’s geological and climatic conditions make it the most competitive place to produce the mineral. The country’s only two lithium producers, Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (NYSE: SQM), enjoy production costs of less than US$3,000 a tonne, compared to almost US$4,000 a tonne in some Argentine salars. So when lithium demand and prices took off earlier this decade, Chile’s economic development agency, Corporacion de Fomento de la Produccion (CORFO), which owns mineral rights on the Salar, signed new lease contracts with Albemarle and SQM allowing them to increase production to around 2 million tonnes over the life of the leases. Continue reading at The Northern Miner.