The "Rumbo Minister" TV show interviewed the Vice Minister of Mines, Augusto Cauti, to discuss the main issues of the national mining industry, such as the project execution portfolio and the problems of Tia Maria and Las Bambas. Shortly before the end of the interview, Oscar Diaz took the opportunity to ask Cauti his point of view about the Macusani Yellowcake lithium project, and what the Vice Ministry was doing to boost it.
I have capitalized the words in which Cauti placed greater emphasis. The interview starts at 14:44.
(...) One last question, we have one minute left. Two years ago a company, called Macusani Yellowcake, discovered a lithium deposit, possibly the largest in Latin America. This deposit is of lithium in rock, which unlike the triangle of lithium, which make up Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, which have it in salt flats, that is ... this deposit is really impressive. You as Vice Minister of Mines, do you see this with enthusiasm? That is, do you plan in any way to support this initiative that could make Peru in a few years the second and then the world's first lithium producer?
Well, we share that, we have an expectant vision about this project, don't we? This project also ... started with this uranium deposit, and just then the lithium was found below this uranium layer. In this case, what we have seen necessary from the regulatory point of view was to elaborate a specific regulation for uranium exploration and exploitation, as it is a mineral with radioactivity. Let's say, we have to be cautious about it and consider it; we are working on it, we are working with the support of international cooperation, with countries very experienced in these issues, and we hope to have this special regulation already approved by the next year's second half. It is a conscientious work that is being done with the entities that are related with these issues, such as the IPEN (Peruvian Institute of Nuclear Energy), the Ministry of Energy and Mines itself, and thereby achieve that this project, which is indeed different to those of the lithium triangle, which are these projects from Bolivia, Argentina and Chile that you mentioned, ... in our case it is different, but not impossible, isn't it? And we believe that right there ... it is not that it is bad, it is simply different and it is necessary to focus it in that way to promote it and so, HOPEFULLY, we can develop that lithium project, and HOPEFULLY we can also at the side develop some industry linked with lithium, which I think would be ideal for the interests of the country and of people in general.
Very well, thank you very much, Augusto Cauti, Vice Minister of Mines, for joining us here in Rumbo Minero, always a pleasure and it is good to talk with you.
Thanks again to you and happy to talk with you again about the topics that interest us.