LatinNews Daily - 19 October 2023

* Chile’s state-owned copper mining company Codelco has announced that it will purchase Australia’s Lithium Power International (LPI), which owns the Blanco project in the Maricunga salt flat, for A$385m (US$243m). The buyout, which needs approval from Lithium Power shareholders, is Codelco’s first lithium acquisition since President Gabriel Boric announced his government’s national lithium strategy in April, which involves plans to establish a national lithium company and bring the country’s immensely valuable lithium reserves under state control, although he also promised that existing private contracts in the area would be respected. Earlier this week President Boric announced an investment of US$233m from Chinese company Yongqing Technology Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of Chinese mining company Tsingshan, to boost Chilean lithium production. Codelco announced at the end of May that it had formally begun talks with the private company Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM), the world’s second-largest lithium producer, with a view to establish a private-public partnership that integrates the Chilean state into the exploitation of the massive lithium reserves in the Atacama salt flats in the north of the country.