Corfo agrees preferential lithium price with SQM

Chile's development agency Corfo and industrial minerals and fertilizer producer SQM reached an agreement on the price that will be offered for lithium to companies that add value to the metal within Chile.

Corfo head Sebastián Sichel said in a seminar in northern Antofagasta region, where SQM produces lithium, that the second "lithium call" will be launched on March 4.

"With SQM we have agreed on 90% of the subjects, and in respect to the preferential price there is already full agreement. The pending discussion focuses on other issues that we hope to resolve shortly," said Sichel, according to local newspaper El Mercurio Calama.

The information was later confirmed by Corfo for BNamericas.

An agreement between Corfo and SQM from January requires the company to sell 25% of its lithium production at a preferential price to local or international companies which industrialize the metal in Chile.

Corfo will select the companies that add the most value to SQM's lithium. The process will include several road shows in countries such as Germany, South Korea, the US and Spain, Sichel said.

A similar bidding process was carried out last year with US-based Albemarle, and Corfo selected three groups to industrialize lithium in the north of Chile: local firm Molymet, South Korea's Posco-Samsung SDI and China's Fulin Group.

However, Sichel announced in October that after fruitless talks with Albemarle, the two will go to arbitration over the preferential prices at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.