Mexico seeks agreement with lithium company in the north of the country: AMLO

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said this Tuesday that the Government seeks to reach a conciliatory agreement with a company on the exploitation of lithium in the north of the country that will underline the right of the State to exploit the valuable mineral.

The president did not mention the firm, but the Chinese Ganfeng has been developing the largest lithium project in the country in the state of Sonora, where it expects to produce 35,000 tons of the product per year, which would position Mexico as a major international player.

“There is a company that had some exploratory work in a very small, very limited area, so they are seeking to reach an agreement with them not to start a legal process but to seek an agreement, a conciliation,” AMLO said in his morning conference .

López Obrador explained that the Ministry of Economy was looking into the matter, but the agency did not immediately say whether the company was Ganfeng when asked for comment.

The president anticipated last week that on February 19 he would be in Sonora because his administration would give the first concessions for the exploitation of the mineral to a recently constituted state company, Lithium for Mexico (LitioMX).

The creation of LitioMX was one of the first government steps after Congress approved an AMLO project to nationalize the mineral, used in the thriving electric car industry, which Mexico develops together with its trading partners in North America, the United States and Canada.

Lithium is generally mined from rocks or brines, but lithium found in the country is mostly in clay deposits, from which the metal has never been extracted commercially, and industry experts doubt it could be done in Mexico without counting with the experience of a private company.

“They want to have the mine but they don’t have the permits,” the president said on Tuesday, although he opened the door to a possible arrangement. “We are seeking an agreement with them to enforce the law, which is going to be enforced, but we need to convince, persuade, reach agreements, not impose anything,” he said from the National Palace.