Chile has asked top lithium miner SQM to decide by year’s end what it will do with its holdings in the Maricunga salt flat, the country’s second richest in lithium, the country’s Mining Minister told Reuters.
Though Maricunga’s 145 km2 make it less than 5% the size of the lithium-rich Salar de Atacama in northern Chile, high-grade deposits of the ultralight battery metal nonetheless make it attractive to miners. But fractured ownership has slowed development.