A follow up on my previous post Companies mining for Lithium in...

A follow up on my previous post

Companies mining for Lithium in politically stable countries such as North America will have an advantage..

Regarding the Lithium Triangle of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia is there risk of disruption of supply?
The government of Chile has made it difficult for both Rockwood and SQM to expand, going back several years now, via the permitting process required to expand capacity. Argentina is a political mess  Bolivia is even worse with an unstable government and limited infrastructure to support development of lithium reserves.

All lithium is not created equal. Some of the growth in supply comes from low quality brine in China and Orocobre still is struggling to produce projected volumes and quality. Given the long supply chains in the industry and depleted inventories in a shortage environment Double digit lithium carbonate prices are becoming the new normal.

Lithium carbonate can be efficiently produced from a brine by (i) removing the boron therefrom, (ii) diluting the boron-free brine, (iii) removing magnesium from the diluted brine, and (iv) adding sodium carbonate to thereby precipitate lithium carbonate. By diluting the boron-free brine, the co-precipitation of lithium carbonate during the magnesium removal process is greatly reduced, thereby improving the recovery and purity of the lithium carbonate.