The Government wishes that the large lithium deposit recently found in the south of the country, near the border with Bolivia, can be processed and industrialized within its territory once the exploitation begins, said the head of the Ministry of Energy and Mines (Minem), Francisco smodes.
In a conference with the Foreign Press Association in Peru (APEP), Ismodes said that the Executive sees "with expectation" the progress in the exploration of the Falchani site by Macusani Yellowcake, a subsidiary of canadian Plateau Energy Metals .
“Ideally, that mineral would be industrialized in our country at the time because it is a much needed input in the world for technological advancement. We know that it is a resource closely linked to the electricity industry to make batteries”, said Ismodes.
On the administrative problems that the mining company is going through, the minister pointed out that the national authorities are waiting to hear a final decision on the cancellation of part of the concessions that the company had due to a delay in the payment of its obligations.
In that sense, the Deputy Minister of Mines, Augusto Cauti, warned that the process initiated by the company to recover and conserve the land can be extended for years if the company resorts to the courts (the Judiciary) through the administrative-contentious way.
The 32 concessions affected in this deliberation cover 23,100 hectares of the 93,000 hectares that Plateau has in different concessions in the area.
For the future exploitation of uranium that has also been found along with lithium, Cauti explained that the Ministry of Energy and Mines will have all legal regulations ready in 2020, including the corresponding guidelines to start extracting that mineral.
Both the lithium and uranium deposits are located in the southern region of Puno, bordering Brazil and Bolivia, at an altitude of 4,300 meters above sea level.
Falchani was announced last year as the sixth largest deposit of its kind in the world, containing about 4.71 million tons of lithium carbonate, a mineral that has been listed by the World Bank as strategic in estimating that its demand will grow in 965% by the year 2050.
Peru is the second largest producer of copper, silver and zinc, the third in lead, the fourth in tin and molybdenum, and the sixth in gold, among other metals, but so far it produces neither uranium nor lithium.