Braulio Carbajal
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, April 21, 2022, p. 5
Once lithium production begins in the Sonora deposit –second half of 2024–, the ore will have Asia as its first destination, to later go to the United States, in accordance with the development strategy of the companies involved: the English company Bacanora Lithium and the Chinese Ganfeng Lithium.
In the first instance, according to financial reports from both companies, most of the so-called white gold that is extracted from Mexican soil will be sent to China, where 90 percent of the world’s lithium batteries are manufactured, which will later be sold mainly to Tesla. , the American manufacturer of electric cars.
The exact plan, as stated in one of its reports to investors, is to transfer the ore by land from Bacadéhuachi, a municipality in Sonora where the deposit is located, to the port of Guaymas, located in Hermosillo (117 kilometers away), from where it is ship to Asia.
Peter Secker, executive director of Bacanora Lithium, highlighted that currently 220 thousand tons of this metal are used in the world for the manufacture of batteries, but by 2027 it will grow five times to more than one million tons, which is a great opportunity taking Keep in mind that nine out of 10 batteries are manufactured in Asia.
One of the largest consumers of electric batteries in the world is the car manufacturer Tesla, which, however, also has an agreement with Ganfeng to acquire lithium, which will serve to supply its mega-plant in Nevada, United States, which is only 400 kilometers from the Sonora deposit.
Dispute is coming
The Sonora Lithium Project, in the hands of Bacanora Lithium, plans to produce 17,500 tons of ore per year starting in the second half of 2024 and later, in a second stage (it is not specified when) to increase to 35,000 tons per year, which which in theory would position Mexico as a great producer.
Said number of tons of lithium already have an owner even before being extracted, since Bacanora agreed to sell all of its production to its two strategic partners, China’s Ganfeng Lithium and Japan’s Hanwa, over the next 10 years.
In mid-2021 Ganfeng (the world’s largest lithium producer) launched an offer to acquire Bacanora (with everything and the Sonoran deposit), which was accepted by the shareholders and authorized at the end of last year by the Federal Economic Competition Commission , so only details are missing for the acquisition to be completed.
The foregoing means that the lithium from that Mexican deposit will go from being controlled by an English company to a Chinese one, which caused the disagreement of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who announced the review of that and other lithium concessions that were given in administrations. past.
There was a contract that was transferred, it was sold in Sonora, which was in the hands of an English company and passed into the hands of a Chinese one. He had to do with an organization of these self-employed, the Cofece. Those specific contracts have to be reviewed
assured the president the day before.
So far, neither Bacanora nor Ganfeng have commented on the matter. The Sonora project represents a private investment of around 420 billion dollars.
