SantiagoKast fast-tracks lithium concessions on Chile’s Atacama flats.
Chile holds the single largest lithium reserve; Kast merged mining and economy under one minister to streamline approvals, ending the prior partial-nationalization policy.
Kast balances US and China investment bids while environmental reviews for high-Andean ecosystems remain unresolved.
Sources: Dialogue Earth
THE TRIANGLE
Roughly half the world's identified lithium sits in the salt flats where Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina meet. The Salar de Atacama is the densest, driest, and most accessible piece — and the one already at industrial scale.
BRINE VS HARD ROCK
Chile and Argentina pump lithium-rich brine from beneath salt flats into evaporation ponds — cheap but slow, taking 12–18 months per batch. Australia mines spodumene rock — faster, capital-intensive, energy-hungry. The two methods set the floor and ceiling of global supply.
THE PRODUCERS
Australia leads on volume from hard-rock mines; Chile leads on reserves and runs second on output. China dominates the next step — refining — regardless of where the rock or brine was extracted.
THE 2023 PIVOT
Boric's government announced a partial-nationalization model in April 2023: future lithium concessions would require public-private partnerships with state miner Codelco or SQM holding majority stakes. Kast's reversal undoes that framework before most of the joint ventures had even been signed.
THE WATER QUESTION
The Atacama is the driest non-polar desert on Earth. Lithium brine extraction draws from the same aquifers that feed Lickanantay (Atacameño) communities and the lagoons supporting Andean flamingo breeding. Hydrologists disagree on whether brine and freshwater aquifers are connected — the dispute that has stalled environmental approvals for a decade.
WHO REFINES IT
Extracting lithium and refining it into battery-grade lithium hydroxide are different industries. China processes the majority of global supply regardless of origin — Australian spodumene ships to Chinese refineries before becoming a cathode. Whoever owns the Chilean mine, the value chain still runs through China.