Chile said on Monday it would shortly begin accepting bids from local and foreign companies seeking to develop battery materials within the South American nation using discounted Chilean lithium provided by top miner SQM.
Chilean authorities struck a deal in January 2018 with SQM that ended a long-running dispute over royalty payments and allowed the miner to boost production from Chile’s Salar de Atacama, home to one-third of the world’s supply of the ultralight battery metal.