AFP – Bolivia said it had signed a USD1-billion deal with China’s CBC, a subsidiary of the world’s largest lithium battery producer CATL, to build two lithium carbonate production plants in the country’s southwest.
Bolivia’s state-owned Bolivia Lithium Deposits (YLB) said the plants – one with an annual capacity of 10,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate and the other of 25,000 – would be situated in the vast Uyuni salt flats.
Lithium, nicknamed ‘white gold’, is a key component in the production of batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.Bolivia claims to have the world’s largest lithium deposits.
President Luis Arce, who presided over the signing ceremony, said it paved the way for Bolivia to become “a very important player in determining the international price of lithium”.
The deal follows an earlier agreement reached last year between Russia’s Uranium One Group and YLB to build a USD970-million lithium extraction facility, also in Uyuni.
Both deals have yet to be approved by Bolivia’s Parliament.
