Yes you are right about Codelco and Chilean Government. They want to gobble up LPI and don't want to pay up for it.
but that's not the only reason.
In my opinion, Codelco would have partnered with us if the same asset is owned by companies in the likes of BHP or Ganfeng. Codelco had always wanted to partner with the right partner and we don't fall in that category. Imagine partnering with LPI and let Cristobel, Andrew Phillip run this JV, that's going to be a disaster. They want someone with the right brains to run the JV because they themselves are not capable of doing it. This is what the Chilean state wants to see.
You ask what can the management do if Codelco is playing unethical games. Let me answer your question. What LPI can do is start building a smaller plant like AGY has done and start producing and tell Codelco to go f themselves, but the sad story is the people at LPI is not capable of making it happen.
Alternately, we can start talking to the big boys to buy us out and let them partner with Codelco, but we all know our management is nobody, no big boys know who they are and wants to talk to them.
This is why we are where are now.