SQM’s CEO reaffirms the company’s strategy in the lithium business
Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (“SQM” or the “Company”) (NYSE: SQM; Santiago Stock Exchange: SQM-A, SQM-B) is pleased to announce that following the recent announcement of the formation of a Joint Venture between SQM and Kidman Resources, SQM will consolidate three complementary lithium production plants worldwide: the Salar de Atacama in Chile, the Salar de Caucharí in Argentina, and the Mount Holland Spodumene deposit in Australia. Patricio de Solminihac, SQM’s CEO commented on the industry's perspectives: "At present, global demand is about 200,000 tons of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) per year and growing at rates of nearly 14% per year. We believe it is highly probable that worldwide demand will exceed 500,000 tons by 2025. The use of lithium batteries in the automotive industry marks a trend that will revolutionize global demand in the coming years." "Our experience as a leader in the industry for more than 20 years puts us in a privileged position to capture the opportunities that arise in the lithium market," added SQM’s CEO. SQM's entry into the ownership of Caucharí and Mount Holland is the result of work done by a SQM multidisciplinary team that has been studying various lithium projects around the world for many years.” Patricio de Solminihac commented: "In lithium production, as in other industrial chemicals, leadership is achieved through the effective execution of projects with high growth potential and low total production costs. The Salar de Atacama, Caucharí, and Mount Holland far exceed our objectives: they are high quality deposits with great potential for future growth, which will allow us to continue being operators with low total production costs in all of our plants.” He added, "At SQM we have a professional team with the knowledge and experience that let us be successful in the development of our Lithium projects over the past 20 years and has led us to identify the most profitable projects worldwide." Finally, de Solminihac closed by saying: "We want to progress as fast as possible in the execution of our new projects. With respect to Caucharí, we will begin construction this year and expect to be producing lithium carbonate by 2019. Regarding Mount Holland, we expect to accelerate the significant exploration and technical studies already undertaken by Kidman to move into production of spodumene concentrate within the next 24 months. With regard to the refining plant, we will advance that in parallel, with the objective to start the production of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate on as short a timetable as possible after the concentrate operation is commissioned.
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