“Only in the EDL scenario, which will strengthen us quickly, obtaining lithium carbonate is based on a production of 100 thousand tons until 2025 and at the current price, it would be four billion (in revenue)”, affirmed the Vice Minister of High Energy Technologies, Álvaro Arnez.

The deputy Minister explained in an interview to the ATB radio station that at present a ton of this chemical compound is quoted at 40,000 dollars.

Arnez indicated that the agreements signed with two Chinese companies and one Russian to introduce this technology are based on the concept of sovereignty in which the highland country has full control of the lithium chain.

“The brine belongs to YLB, company that is going to carry out the wells, which is going to extract this brine rich in lithium, the plant that is going to be used, plus the operation that belongs to YLB”, he reaffirmed.

He stressed, meanwhile, that technology and investment are from foreign companies. Official sources maintain that industrial research in EDL technology saves time to enter the “window of opportunities” and the sale of mineral carbonate, as well as send cathodes and batteries to Europe and China.

On July 20, the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, assured in Oruro that the reserves of this chemical element in Bolivia went from 21 to 23 million tons and that national specialists developed their own technology in collaboration with French technicians.

“The good news we gave to the people of Oruro (…) is that YLB, with the technology that was developed, together with the Technical University of Oruro and a French company, we have the possibility of making the first investment here,” said the leader.

Arce stressed this undertaking in Coipasa can be carried out with its own capital, by a national company and with Bolivian technology.

The dignitary insisted that with the two million tons existing in the Coipasa reservoir, the country’s availability rose to 23, thus the Plurinational State reaffirms itself as the “first lithium reserve on the planet.”

Bolivia promotes an intense investment plan, which includes the presence of foreign companies as partners of the State.

In this sense, YLB signed agreements with two Chinese companies and one Russian, which have already committed a total of two thousand 800 million dollars in investments in a model that the Bolivian authorities reiterate is “sovereign.”

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