This new lithium carbonate project would be the first in the province of Salta and will join three currently in production in the South American country. Argentinean lithium exports grew 20% in 2023, according to industry sources.

Eramine South America, owned by the French group Eramet and the Chinese steel company Tsingsham, will inaugurate its first lithium carbonate plant in the northern province of Salta in July, becoming the fourth facility in production in Argentina.

The firm expects to reach about 3,000 tons of the key energy transition mineral this year, while it plans to scale to 24,000 tons per year by 2025 and through the end of its growth curve, said a company executive.

"At its maximum capacity, the plant will produce 24,000 tons of battery-grade lithium as it reaches the maximum production level, which will be next year," Constanza Cintioni, director of Sustainability at Eramine South America, told Reuters in a phone interview.

"We are going to reach 3,000 tons from July to December of this year," she added.

The project to extract the metal used in the batteries of mobile phones and electric cars is located at 4,000 meters above sea level in the area of the Centenario Ratones salt flat, in Salta, about 1,400 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires. The plant has a projected useful life of 40 years and its production will be fully earmarked to exports, said Cintioni. She added that the total estimated investment amounts to 800 million dollars. After a first stage, the firm plans to set up a second plant with similar characteristics and capacities in the same basin, although it does not have a construction date yet.

This new lithium carbonate project would be the first in the province of Salta and will join the other three currently in production in Argentina. The country's exports of the mineral grew by 20% year-on-year in 2023, according to industry sources.

The three projects in production are in Salar de Olaroz (run by Sales de Jujuy and Allkem) and in Olaroz Cauchari (by Exar, owned by Chinese company Gangfeng and the Canadian company Lithium Americas), both in the province of Jujuy. The third is in the Salar del Hombre Muerto, in Catamarca (operated by giant Arcadium Lithium Plc). Unlike other projects that use pools for brine evaporation, the Eramine South America plant uses a production process based on a direct extraction method, which allows higher performance.

"It is a much more efficient process. It requires half the brine pumping with the same production level versus the traditional one. The level of lithium recovery from the brine that is extracted is 90%," said Cintioni.

Argentina, the world's fourth largest producer of the white metal, is located within the so-called "lithium triangle" and has been attracting investments from foreign companies, from Canada to China, at a time when the government of ultra-liberal Javier Milei seeks to obtain more dollars through mining.