| Work Detail |
It is at the Centenario plant, which the French company Eramet owns in the province of Salta. French mining company Eramet has announced the production of lithium carbonate at its Centenario plant in Argentinas Salta province, the first facility in the country to implement direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology on an industrial scale, it said. In a statement, Eramet reports that DLE technology “offers sustainable and highly efficient lithium carbonate, suitable for electric vehicle battery applications.” It adds that “Centenario’s first plant is designed to extract and produce 24,000 t/year of battery-grade lithium carbonate, and at full capacity it should be in the first quartile of the lithium industry’s cost curve.” The resources are obtained from the Centenario-Ratones salt flat, located at an altitude of 4,000 meters, which the company estimates amounts to more than 15 Mt of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), with an average concentration of 407 mg/L of lithium contained in the brine, a resource that Eramet considers world class, large enough to support the long-term growth option for a production capacity greater than 75 kt-LCE/year. In October, the French group announced that it had regained full ownership of the Centenario plant by buying the 49.9% stake of its then partner, Chinas Tsingshan Holding Group. |
