Fernando Alanís, former president of the Mining Chamber of Mexico (Camimex), told Expansion that, as the knowledge about the so-called “white gold” is still scarce, the decisions around its exploitation should be “more technical than political”. At least in the start-up phase, otherwise, something similar to what could happen happened with Mexican Uranium (Uramex)a decentralized public body of the federal government, with its own legal personality and assets, born in 1979, which ended up disappearing five years later due, among other things, to the change in energy policy after the six-year change of administration.
“(The problem) is that political decisions are made, when technical decisions should be made. In Mexico, until now, we don’t know if there is commercial lithium,” Alanís explained.
“The first thing to do, as with any ore deposit, is to locate it; find out the prospective locations that have potential to be able to later carry out a study at a semi-detailed and detailed level, which allows knowing the potential that (each deposit) has and then be able to plan the exploitation. But we have to finish exploring,” he said separately to Expansion Flor de María Harp, director of the SGM.
So far, only one lithium deposit has been confirmed in Mexico, in Bacadehuichi, Sonora, which is operated by the Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium; however, no quantity of the mineral contained in clays is yet commercialized. The specialists consulted assure that Until now, there is not a single clay deposit in the world that has an economically viable production, because they are very small concentrations of the mineral.
Luis Humberto Vázquez, president of the Association of Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and Geologists of Mexico, agreed with Alanís that there is little knowledge about lithium, in addition to the fact that LitioMx had to have been created to operate in conjunction with the SGM. “The government has a fairly strong technical ignorance regarding lithium. The one who has the closest approach to lithium is not even the Ministry of Economy, it is the Mexican Geological Service, the one that has followed up on it, ”he told Expansion.
The SGM has identified more than 80 probable regions that could contain the much desired mineral, and in October of last year it announced that it would invest 55.2 million pesos in studies to learn more about the mineral deposits in the country and its commercial viability.
harp commented that the Federal Government has not had any approach to date with the institution, but considers that it will be necessary to generate synergies to speed up the work of exploration and exploitation of the mineral. “If you want to speed up (the process) it is necessary to invest more resources, not only financial, but also personnel,” he said. “We suppose that we would have to continue supporting them in this first stage, which is exploration,” he concluded.