Chile has granted approval to US chemicals firm Albemarle to increase production of lithium from its claims on the Salar de Atacama, one of the world's largest and most competitive sources of the sought-after mineral, the company said Friday.
Albemarle said that Chile's industrial development agency CORFO had authorized the company to produce up to 145,000 mt/year of lithium carbonate equivalent through 2043.
The company plans to increase output by applying a new technology to increase the yield of lithium from brine extracted from the salt flat.
The additional output will come on stream from 2021 with a similar production cost to its current output, the company said.
"We will continue to actively monitor the market and bring this capacity on, as needed, to meet the needs of our contracted customers," John Mitchell, Albemarle's president of lithium, said in a statement.
Albemarle is Chile's second-largest lithium producer behind SQM, but last year Albemarle signed a new agreement with CORFO, which owns mining claims on the Salar de Atacama, to increase production to around 70,000 mt/year.
Last week SQM announced plans to increase production from its claims, also rented from CORFO, to 100,000 mt/year LCE after signing a new contract with the state entity in January.
