Almar, based in Spain and part of the Saudi Jameel Environmental Services, works with minimum discharge or maximum concentration technology that expands the desalination method to separate minerals, optimizing water recovery. It has been tested to obtain lithium.
Almar Water Solutions, a company specialized in water solutions, will compete in the process led by financial advisor Rothschild to find a partner for Chilean state-owned Codelco to allow it to develop its lithium project in the Maricunga salt flat, the firm's CEO told Reuters on Tuesday.
Almar, based in Spain and part of the Saudi Jameel Environmental Services, works with minimum discharge or maximum concentration technology that expands the desalination method to separate minerals, optimizing water recovery. This has been tested to obtaining lithium, according to the executive.
"We are not a company that is interested in selling lithium, it is not our business," Carlos Cosín, CEO of Almar Water Solutions, told Reuters.
"Now, we have three things: financial capacity, local presence and access to this technology. How these three characteristics of ours can be combined to be a partner within that consortium is what we have to study," he added.
Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, hired Rothschild to find a partner for Maricunga, which it hopes to have selected by the first quarter of next year.
"Codelco is relevant because those three characteristics are good. We can bring in a more powerful financial partner that gives Codelco greater comfort. We can go hand in hand with one of those that has already been presented. Those are the things we want to review with Rothschild," added Cosín.
The company already provides water services to Codelco divisions.
However, the executive admitted that the different variables that come together in the development of large projects could delay the result.
"We know very well what these processes are like and it is not something that is for today or tomorrow, although the deadlines are already more or less scheduled, we know that these deadlines can be very flexible depending on how the processes go. And there are many interested companies," he highlighted.
Additionally, in the midst of a public process of declaration of private interest to develop other lithium initiatives in the South American country, Cosín pointed out that other potential investors have contacted them.
"Other interested parties who also have certain rights are calling us. So they tell us, I have the right, I don't have the financial capacity nor do I have the technology. Let's talk, right? There we are," he said without giving details.
Almar's technology began to be applied in metal separation in the microelectronics industry and is now used in lithium, both for direct extraction and for battery recycling.
"Our interest, of course, is to become an operator with added value within the Chilean market. And the mining sector is very clear, the sector in which we feel comfortable," he noted.
Cosín said that the obstacle for Chile is the long processing times to crystallize investment projects.
"It is the great bottleneck. It cannot be that a developer who wants to do a project or a private person who wants to do a project for himself takes between six and eight years to get a permit," he said.
However, he highlighted that Chile is an attractive and stable country, with a good investment inflow, which is why it is urgent to correct the great uncertainty caused by the process.
Recently, Chile's Antofagasta Minerals transferred the assets and rights of its seawater supply system from its Centinela mine to a consortium made up of Almar and the local Transelec, which will also expand the supply for the mining company with an expected investment of US$ 1.5 billion.
"For mining companies to outsource water assets and hire a long-term operator who has the capacity to operate and finance it is a very important step that I believe other mining companies will follow," he stated.
"We are looking at other potential development projects, of course mining is the big sector (...). We are interested in all projects that may come from greenfield development," he explained.
