The Ministry of Hydrocarbons and the state company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) convened an act for Thursday morning, in which Arce will specify how many tons exist in the Oruro reserve.

The largest salt flats are located in Uyuni, department of Potosí, which has an area of approximately 10,000 square kilometers and a potential of 21 million tons of lithium.

Coipasa covers an area of 2,500 square kilometers; it is followed by Empexa (around 400 square kilometers) and Pastos Grandes (120 square kilometers), both of them in Potosí.

YLB signed three agreements with two Chinese companies and one Russian between January and June as part of the government’s economic policy, which commits 2,8 million dollars in investments to industrialize lithium under a sovereign business model.

The most recent agreements, signed in June, involve the Citic Guoan Corporation (belonging to China’s Citic Group) and the Uranium One Group company (a subsidiary of Russia’s Rosatom).

According to the Minister of Economy Marcelo Montenegro, the Bolivian lithium reserves, currently recognized, have a value of 42 billion dollars.

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