September 2, 2010

Bolivias Lithium Deposit Is World Class

By Planet Wealth

pstrongBolivias Lithium Prospects/strongbr / Everyone knows that Bolivias 5.4Million MT of lithium content (US Geological Survey), Bolivia has the worlds largest reserves of lithium . Since May 2008 the Bolivian government ks building their first government owned lithium carbonate extraction plant to net about 4,800,000 Metric tons of Li Carbonate a year . As of October 2009 the Forward movement of the li-carbonate extraction plant shows that it will unfortunately be delayed about 6 months which implies that it will become fully operational sometime next year. Also, the government has announced that it will invest $350,000,000 on an industrial plant to produce between 20,000 and 30,000 MT of Lithium Carbonate coming online for 2015./p
p All of the a title=lithium mining companies href=www.lithium-stocks.net/ target=_blankemstronglithium mining companies/strong/em/a in Bolivia have at least 3 problems to hurdle . First, at the political level, the government had made their minds up, and do not choose to, and will not listen to the outside world. According to the Project Director, the industrial plant will be completely owned by the state because:/p
p(1) Bolivia has the largest strongema title=lithium deposit href=www.lithium-stocks.net/ target=_blanklithium deposit/a/em/strong and reserve in the world;/p
p(2) Its the only simplistic rout ensure that the benefits will be reinvested in the division and in the country;/p
p(3) Bolivia should guarantee the supply of Lithium Carbonate to the world on clear market conditions; and/p
p(4) exploitation and industrialization of Li should be sustainable and integral. As plausible as they might seem, these conditions do not seem to adapt the basis for a sensible outline of development of the lithium resources in Bolivia. But, if the car revolution takes off, chances are the government will be forced to revise its choice to go on its own./p
pSecond, at the physical level, the brine resources in Bolivia need to overcome at least the following hurdles:/p
p(1) the low evaporation levels at the Salar de Uyuni ;/p
p(2) their high Magnesium-Lithium ratio; and/p
p(3) their lack of free access to the sea. As reported at the First International Forum on Science andnbsp;Technologynbsp;for the Industrialization of Lithium and other Evaporitic Resources held in La Paz in October 2009, the University of Potosi (with the help of the University of Freiberg from Germany) appears to have made vital progress aimed at improving evaporation rates at Uyuni using dynamic cones of intensive evaporation. Similarly, both the governments pilot project and the University of Potosi announced that they were able to separate Mg towards the end of the process taking recourse to different chemical procedures18. But, Bolivias lack of free access remains an vital problem because it will most likely increase the cost of transportation of Li carbonate to the nearest maritime port while reducing its competitiveness./p
pThird, at the social level, there is a general feeling in the communities living nearby the Salar de Uyuni that exploitation and industrialization of lithium should help them overcome their situation of poorness . There is no strategy in place to address this very serious and highly vital problem . Of course one should be rather cautious about the real possibility to generate a lot of jobs in the product of Li because this is known to be a capital intensive business./p
pFinally, in a series of two articles published in two major newspapers in La Paz, Bolivia, between September and October 2009, the author of this study has advanced a preliminary proposal for the industrialization of the Salar de Uyuni. To start with, in order to develop the countrys lithium and other resources a real scientific-technological revolution should be implemented in Bolivia, but this is a long run and costly effort. The Bolivian state should face this challenge but this does not imply to postpone nearly indefinitelystrongem lithium exploitation/em/strong. Bolivia should not swing its scarcenbsp;moneynbsp;and time on ldquo;reinventing the wheelrdquo; they are going to develop their own lithium carbonate extraction technology but dont have the knowledge or the extra money if something messes up.nbsp; They have hardly any knowledge and human resources . Given all the delays and technical problems facing the governments pilot plant, this author wondered whether it would have been better to hire some international specialized firm with the indispensable know-how and human resources to help the government to develop and implement the pilot plant./p
pApart from the scientific-technological development that the government should support during the following 20 years or so , the strategy should contemplate the quantification of the reserves of all evaporitic resources in the Salar de Uyuni, through the most modern prospection methods, including 3-D satellite ones, similar to the ones used in the hydrocarbon sector. In accordance with the results of this activity, the salar should be divided into different areas of exploitation in a grid. Then Bolivian government officialsnbsp; could have a propose from many organizations specialized in the development and exploitation proposals on Bolivias conditions based on service contracts similar to the ones the country has agreed upon with foreign private oil companies currently operating in Bolivia. Looking at the exploration process results , the country could choose which areas are assigned to specialized international firms and which areas are reserved for future exploitation./p
pnbsp;/p
pWithin this framework, lithium carbonate delivery deals could be agreed upon with those companies so as to insure that Bolivia is in charge of its commercialization or use in subsequent industrialization processes. This approach should guarantee the prompt launch of an industrial scale operation to produce mostly Lithium carbonate. It is imperative to act like this because this is the only way Bolivia can send the right signals to the Li-Ion battery and electric vehicle markets and take an vital share in thestrongem a title=lithium market href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF9pFoi7HUs target=_blanklithium market/a/em/strong. Finally, with some of the proceeds obtained from exports of Li carbonate and other derived chemical compounds, Bolivia could advance rapidly towards a more comprehensive process of industrialization of lithium to produce different classes of lithium batteries and electric cars in the country, through strategic joint ventures with the most competitive international firms in the world along Boliviarsquo;s lithiumnbsp;supply chains./p
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