The Mexican government published yesterday the decree for the conformation of Lithium for Mexico , “LitioMx”, the state agency that will lead all activities related to lithium production, after the veto of private participation raised by the last change to the Mining Law. But it has done so without reliable data on the amount of lithium in Mexican territory. The Mexican Geological Service has identified more than 80 probable regions where the mineral could be and is developing a study to determine the existence of reserves, but beyond that, the federal administration does not have accurate data on the mineral whose exploitation has just been reserved.
“The reality is that in Mexico we do not have enough data to make a minimally serious prospective,” explains Rigoberto García Ochoa, an academic from the Colegio de la Frontera Norte. The researcher, a critic of the formation of the new state body, says that the great promise that Mexico is a probable great producer was born from “a false expectation, an illusion.”
“It is a communication problem that has led to a series of expectations that are false, it was mentioned that the deposit in Bacadehuachi was the largest in the world and that there were reserves of approximately 243 million tons, which made it the largest single deposit in the world. Hence, immediately, seeing all that wealth contained in the soil of Bacadehuachi, these expectations have been created”, he says in an interview.
The country does not have any reserves in the exploitation phase. The areas identified so far by the Mexican Geological Service are still only probable reserves and verifying their economic viability is still a long way off. The federal government, through Lithium for Mexico, also reserved the exploration of the mineral. The decree mentions that the body will be in charge of “locating and recognizing the geological areas in which there are probable lithium reserves with the help of the Mexican Geological Service.” Analysts already anticipate that this type of study requires many resources and that a lack of government capital could delay knowing how much lithium is actually in the country.
“For sure we don’t know how much lithium we have that is really profitable, in the case of minerals, after prospecting, estimates of reserves are made, a bit like in oil. In Mexico, the only proven reserves are those of Bacanora Lithium, there in Sonora, because it is the first large project where quantitative studies have been carried out on the concentration of lithium in the clay”, says Ferrari.
Data from the United States Geological Survey place Mexico in an important place with respect to the nations with the most reserves of the mineral, but still far from the great holders of lithium, such as Bolivia or Australia. The organization places the country in the 10th place, but everything is a matter of perspective, say the interviewees. Mexico, according to these estimates, would have 1.7 million tons of reserves, less than 10% of what Bolivia or Argentina have, who lead the lists, with 21 and 19 million tons of mineral reserves, respectively.