Aguilar salt lake lithium production project begins operations at the end of the year

Source: Ministry of Commerce website January 29, 2019

Chile’s Courier News reported on January 21 that US company Ensorcia has invested US$220 million in cooperation with Chile’s National Mining Corporation (Enami) and will begin in the third largest region (Atacama) Aguilar Salt Lake in the fourth quarter of this year. Lithium mining and production.

Unlike the traditional solar evaporation evaporator extraction technology, Ensorcia will adopt a technology called MU, which is to install a mobile device near the salt lake to extract lithium mixed salt before injecting lake water and other minerals back into the salt lake. This technology has been successfully tested in the United States and hopes to achieve commercial production in Chile. Ensorcia has discussed cooperation with the Chilean government since 2016 and has now reached an agreement with Enami holding 10% of the shares.

The project is planned in two stages: the initial stage is to produce 40% lithium chloride, and 90% brine is injected back into the salt lake; the second stage will produce 99.9% battery grade lithium carbonate. Ensorcia said that the first stage of investment comes from the company's own funds, and the second stage will be financed by banks. It is currently in talks with several Chilean and foreign banks.