In the filing, Corfo said, however, the study couldn't pinpoint which of the copper or lithium miners operating in the Salar was to blame for the imbalance. Last year, following a challenge by Atacameño communities, the First Environmental Court ordered authorities to rewrite a US$25 million remediation plan agreed with SQM (NYSE: SQM) for damage caused by its lithium operations, including excessive brine pumping. The shadow of a roof is cast on an old corral at Cejar lagoon at Atacama salt flat near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, Aug. 15, 2018. Water is used as a solution to dissolve the salt or halite deposits so that they can be extracted by pipe to an evaporation process, which results in a brine or dry product for sale or use. Its primary asset is a 17.35% interest in the Maricunga Lithium Brine Project in Chile. A salt well (or brine well) is used to mine salt from caverns or deposits. It is anticipated that following successful completion of this test, pilot plant tests will be carried out with brines in Bolivia, Argentina, and other salars in Chile. Lithium is considered a strategic resource in Chile, and its exploitation is steeped in difficulties. The Rajo Inca project, which will extract the remaining resources in Salvador’s Indio Muerto deposit, is designed to produce 93,000 tonnes a year of copper, expanding and extending production at Salvador by several decades. Lithium Chile’s Salar de Atacama lithium property in Chile’s Antofagasta region. This quantity of brine was not quite economical for a bromine recovery plant. Kissam also said his company was currently using only the amount of water allowed by regulators. In a recent interview with Reuters, Kissam, Albemarle's CEO, insisted there was “no question” that there was enough water in the Salar to maintain lithium operations. Depleted oil wells later were employed for brine production to raise the plant feed to 1,430 m3 daily. Click here to email us. BHP (LSE: BHP) is also facing a fine of up to US$5 million for breaching the terms of its environmental license. A taupe jigsaw of desert roads connecting brine wells evokes a circuit diagram (“Brine Wells #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile,” 2017). A nun sprinkles holy water on believers inside a church during a religious holiday in the Peine area on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert, Chile, Aug. 15, 2018. But the surface measurably sank when a small percentage of the brine flowed out, and shifts each summer as water drops in the adjacent irrigation canal. Volume 106 Number 20 September 28 – October 11, 2020. Over the last decade, a dozen mining companies, including copper producer Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO), iron ore miner CAP Minería and Lundin Mining (TSE: LUN) have all built desalination plants to reduce pressure on scant or nonexistent ground and surface water supplies. When a judge closed wells supplying its Maricunga gold mine in 2016, again due to damage to wetlands ... for damage caused by its lithium operations, including excessive brine pumping. Like canaries in a coal mine, the health of the trees was meant to act as an early warning signal of water problems. The company expects to extract more lithium from the same amount of pumped brine by using brine earmarked to produce potash and using higher-grade wells. That brine has held up the cavern roof. "When people ask me, ‘Is the water going to run out?’ I tell them, ‘The truth is, we don’t know,” Cervetto said. In 2019, Buckeye Brine was granted permission to convert two of its Class II wells to Class I wells for the injection of other types of waste beyond brine from the oil and gas industry. SQM has not confirmed overdrawing brine. This brine well came into production in 1974 but was completed as a re‐entry into and oil and gas well originally drilled in 1958 and mined salt from the same geologic salt formation (Salado) as all brine wells in New Mexico. Stacks are a fun combination of great food all piled up onto one plate. It has the highest known concentration of lithium, averaging 0.14% (or 1400 ppm) lithium equivalent to around 1,680 mg/l due to it 1.2 g/cc density, and is the world’s largest producer of lithium carbonate. Another plant to supply its Spence mine is due to be commissioned later this year. Following intervention by Mining Minister Baldo Prokurica, the council has agreed to suspend the action to give time for a viable solution to be worked out with Codelco and other authorities. But even building one’s own desalination plant is not without challenges. Former president of the Atacamenos Peoples Council, Ana Ramos, holds up a handful of alfalfa on a dried alfalfa field at Salar area next to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, Aug. 15, 2018. What is Albemarle going to be able to do production-wise?". In addition, LPI remains the only ASX-listed company with exposure to a lithium brine resource in Chile. In April, they presented a similar suit against BHP-controlled Minera Escondida for alleged damage caused by its water wells to another salt-flat, Salar de Punta Negra. It is not the only mining company turning to the ocean. A desalination plant for BHP’s Escondida mine in Chile. Hydro-geologists and environmental chemists consulted by Reuters on the filings said the back-and-forth between the miners underscores widespread concerns over just how much brine is left and how long it will last. The Brine Well Eatery provides guests with fresh, local, humanely raised, and sustainably grown food, with a fast casual feel. Tighter regulation could hobble both companies’ plans to ramp-up lithium production over the coming years, although SQM has brushed off the threat. Burtynsky’s intricately patterned and textured landscapes possess a crop-formation exoticism; yet it turns out that we humans are the architects of this unnerving and seemingly alien terrain. A sign reading 'No trespassing' stands at Cejar lagoon at Atacama salt flat near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, Aug. 15, 2018. FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows the brine pools of SQM lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, January 10, 2013. Additional pumping equipment was installed in some of the wells in order t o provide 795 m3 of brine daily for the bromine recovery project. "The lithium world is on pins and needles," he said. In addition to their use as energy sources, the brines produced in Chile's extensive geothermal sources could also be used to produce fresh water, which could help defuse the growing conflicts over the use of water resources. The commitment will help defuse local opposition to the company’s ambitious expansion plans. September 8, 2020 “This will trigger a radical change in the legislation,” Huepe says. Chile's environmental regulator has said SQM made changes to how it monitors wells without authorization, making it difficult to track the impact of SQM's pumping on brine supplies. Bearing Lithium Corp. is a lithium-focused mineral exploration and development company. The company expects to extract more lithium from the same amount of pumped brine by using brine earmarked to produce potash and using higher-grade wells. Lithium analyst Joe Lowry said the filings had potential implications for the global production of lithium, which has become one of the world's hottest commodities. In July, Chile’s biggest copper producer Codelco suspended a US$1.2 billion mining project at its Salvador division after lawyers for the Chilean state accused the operation of causing irreparable environmental damage. Environmental officials act on requests for permits of brine, but the water authority manages freshwater pumping. But, it added, “Our conclusions indicate that neither the environmental sustainability nor productivity of the Salar de Atacama are compromised.”. Workers prepare to install a moisture metering system in the middle of Atacama salt flat near Toconao in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, Aug. 15, 2018. Although the brine is undrinkable, local communities say their actions have dried up local water tables hitting agriculture and local wildlife, such as flamingos. By continuing to browse you agree to our use of cookies. on "Water rights under scrutiny in Chile’s Atacama Desert", Tom Azzopardi, Special to The Northern Miner, Volume 106 Number 20 September 28 – October 11, 2020, BHP to pay $840M to end coal energy dependence in Chile, Chile struggles to maintain copper production as coronavirus spreads, Chile court looks at alleged Escondida breaches, Mitsubishi acquires 30% of Mantoverde copper mine, Fission offers $30M bought deal for Triple R development, Upcoming Edumine Courses: ESG and sustainable mining, Proposed new royalty unsettles miners in Chile. The 23 dead trees represented one-third of those SQM had committed to monitoring. Lithium brine deposits: Continental Iodine occurs as NaIO3 (Sodium iodate) and NaIO4 (Sodium per iodate) in chile brine wells. Fluorine occurs as Fluorspar,Caf2, cryolite Na3Alf6, Apatite CaF2.3Ca3 (PO4)2. Corfo submitted a new study on the availability of water in the Salar to the environmental regulator in March that found more water and brine was leaving the system through pumping and evaporation than was coming back in via rain and snowfall. BHP rejects the charges and is planning to appeal. “We are sure that we are going to obtain all the necessary approvals for the new plant in the coming months,” SQM chief executive Ricardo Ramos told analysts on a conference call. “We´re not overdrawing. Earlier this year, the world's two biggest lithium producers publicly celebrated new deals with Chile's government that will allow them to vastly increase output of the ultralight battery metal from the Atacama, the world's driest desert. Vital to processes such as concentrating and leaching, miners typically extract the water they need from aquifers located high in the Andes Mountains having obtained the necessary rights from Chile’s water authority. "If SQM is extracting more brine than it is permitted from the Salar, that can have repercussions on the availability of reserves in the basin for other projects,” wrote lawyers for Albemarle subsidiary Rockwood Lithium Ltd in the March 2017 filing. In celebrating the new contracts, the two companies said they were confident they could significantly boost output without drawing more than their current quotas of lithium-rich brine, or saltwater, that has for millennia accumulated in pools beneath the Atacama. I was the Manager of Project Development for OUTOKUMPU MINING in Chile. Lithium brine deposits represent about 66 percent of global lithium resources and are found mainly in the salt flats of Chile, Argentina, China and Tibet. Brine grew to be the primary source for lithium production for a … On Sept. 6, Antofagasta announced that it plans to double the size of a desalination plant currently under construction to 800 litres per second that will allow its Los Pelambres copper mine, the fourth largest in Chile, to reduce consumption of freshwater by around 95%. Earlier this year, BHP announced that Escondida had stopped extracting groundwater following a massive expansion of its desalination capacity. He declined to comment on the concerns expressed by his company in the regulatory filings about the area's water supplies. That filing came a month after Eduardo Bitran, who was then head of Chile's state development agency, Corfo, raised similar concerns about the amount of brine SQM had been drawing and other infractions. Credit: BHP Sustainability Report, 2017. But over nearly two years it has filed four plans with regulators to bring its operations back into line with environmental approvals, which, among other things, specify how much brine SQM can pump. SQM declined to comment on its water fight with Albemarle. They said the filings show that neither the Chilean authorities nor the companies have a clear picture of the water situation at a time when the miners have been given the green light to boost production. It wrote to the regulator saying it was "outrageous" that Albemarle was presenting itself as a defender of the environment when Albemarle had acknowledged overdrawing water in 2008 and between 2010-2012. Shortly after Griswold recognized its instability, the well was pumped full of brine and capped with cement and cast iron. By: Tom Azzopardi, Special to The Northern Miner In one such filing, Albemarle said its rival's compliance plan failed to sufficiently address regulators' concerns and "raises doubts ... about the sustainability in time of both companies' operations.". Agreed at the height of last year’s violent protests over social inequalities, many see the referendum as a chance to eliminate constraints imposed on the country’s politics 40 years ago by military dictator General Augusto Pinochet. These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. “This is definitely going to happen.”. As water resources dwindle and legal challenges mount, more are expected to follow. When a judge closed wells supplying its Maricunga gold mine in 2016, again due to damage to wetlands, Kinross Gold (TSX: K; NYSE: KGC) had little choice but to suspend operations. In one of the world’s driest deserts, the battle for water is heating up. For Mariana Cervetto, a hydro-geologist who has reviewed technical aspects of the case for both Corfo, the state development agency, and the local indigenous communities that surround the Atacama salt flat, questions still outweigh answers. The options are even more limited for Chile’s lithium industry whose business depends on pumping huge volumes of brines from beneath the Salar de Atacama and evaporating it to extract the minerals they contain. The lithium industry extracts brine from the salar and returns minimal fluid to the aquifers (the water in the brine is lost in evaporative processing). Most of the world’s iodine supply comes from three areas: the Chilean desert nitrate mines, the gasfields and oilfields in Japan, and the iodine-rich brine wells in northwestern Oklahoma. I don't see any issue with our ability to get (the brine) ... today, tomorrow and throughout the term of that agreement,” which ends in 2043, Albemarle CEO Luke Kissam told investors in August. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? A report published the Chilean Copper Commission in December 2019 found that desalinated water will rise from just over a quarter to almost half of the water consumed by the country’s copper mines between now and the end of the decade. For almost four years the activity has been the source of a legal dispute between the communities of the Atacama Desert and SQM, one of the country’s biggest companies, which is partially owned by the Chinese firm Tianqi since 2019.. Batch & Brine's new tacos. Brine pools from a lithium mine, that belongs US-based Albemarle Corp, is seen on the Atacama salt flat in the Atacama desert, Chile, Aug. 16, 2018. Processing and pumping water hundreds of kilometres inland and thousands of meters up into the Andes Mountains is an expensive affair and not all mines have the cost structure to bear it, says Perez. Albemarle declined comment when asked by Reuters whether that was correct. 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