Salta adds another lithium project by the hand of an Argentine...

Salta adds another lithium project by the hand of an Argentine with extensive experience in the sector. The province enabled the national company Puna Mining to commercialise the mineral that it began to produce, as a test, in Salar del Rincón, Los Andes department.After the local Ministry of Mining and Energy issued the Environmental Impact Statement for phase 3, the company is preparing to move forward with an investment of US$ 250 million. It will be for the construction of a plant that will be completed in a year and a half, with the capacity to store 12,000 tons. Currently, it produces at the rate of 2,000 tons per year in its pilot plant located in Campo Quijano, which required a disbursement of US$ 15 million."Today, we are in phase 2, which demanded US$ 35 million for the installation of evaporation pools and a mining camp. The third will allow the construction of a larger plant to commercialise the product," said the Salte chemical engineer Pablo Alurralde, founder and president of the firm, which he created in 2017 with financing from the Australian Argosy Minerals Limited in a joint venture.
In his company, his son, Francisco, also participates as general director; and his son-in-son, Luis Sansot, as director of operations. Also his daughters, María José and Rosario, as heads of administration and the area of corporate social responsibility
Unlike multinationals that have mining operations in the north of the country, Puna Mining first tests the technology in its pilot plant and then scales the project, a procedure that, according to the company, can be carried out because it is a smaller structure. To give it a local imprint, Alurralde designed the technology of the production process to manufacture battery-grade lithium carbonate with 99.5% purity, a key input for electric car batteries and the supply of renewable energies."From the Salar, we obtain the raw material, the brine, which is then treated in a complex process that involves a low consumption of water and energy to obtain the final product," said the specialist, who, at the end of the 1970s, was part of a Conicet research project on the brine of the saltworks of the Puna, one of the pioneering works on lithium in Argentina, and worked for the Catamarca project of the American FMC (today Livent).The evaluation process for the next stage included citizen participation through a public hearing, carried out by the Ministry of Production and Sustainable Development, and prior consultation within the framework of ILO Convention 169, through the Secretariat of Indigenous Affairs.
In 2023, the team grew by almost 30%. Puna Mining employs 191 collaborators (53 in Salta and 138 in Rincón). More than 90% comes from the province. During the construction of the new plant, he plans to hire 380 direct employees and create more than 1,600 indirect jobs.Argentine lithiumIn this way, Salta adds its fourth project, although on a smaller scale to the other three plants that began to be built of the Posco mining plants (from South Korean capitals), the French Eramet and Ganfeng Lithium (from Chinese funds).Today, there are only three major projects in the production stage: Fénix, in the Salar de Hombre Muerto, headed by Livent in Catamarca; Salar de Olaroz in Jujuy, from Sales de Jujuy and Allkem; and Olaroz Cauchari, also in Jujuy, from the firm Exar (although it does not yet operate at full capacity, it is the largest local plant).