Chile, Replete With Lithium Reserves, Open To Sharing Expertise With India — Report

Lithium-rich Chile is open to sharing its knowhow with India, reveals reporting by The Indian Express.

"We are open (to it) if the Indian Government were to initiate anything formally," Alex Wetzig, Secretary General to Chile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the newspaper.

This partnership would be beneficial to India, a lithium importer, as significant lithium reserves were discovered for the first time ever in the country, in February 2023.

The new find came at the foothills of the Salal-Haimana area of Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district.

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) estimated an inferred resource of 5.9 million tonnes of lithium ore there.

By "inferred resource," it is meant that the GSI is still at a preliminary exploration stage, the second of a four-step process.

Earlier, in 2021, preliminary surveys by the Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research showed the presence of lithium resources of 1,600 tonnes in Mandya district, Karnataka.

Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and one of the key components in electric vehicle batteries.

India's bumper lithium find, thus, provides a major boost to the country's push towards electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies.

Currenly, India is import-dependent for several elements such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt. India is said to have spent around Rs 26,000 crore importing lithium between 2018 and 2021.

The world's largest lithium reserves are in South America. Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina collectively account for over 40 million metric tonnes.

Chile has around 48 per cent of the total lithium reserves in the world, contained mostly in the Salar de Atacama, a large salt flat located in the north of the country.

A Chilean company called SQM happens to be the world's second-largest lithium producer.

Even though the lithium found in India is in mineral form, different from Chile's salt pans, the Chilean company would still be capable of sharing expertise, just as it does in Australia, where also lithium is found in mineral form, Wetzig indicated to The Indian Express.