Pretty big news dropped yesterday from the SEA about the status of an administration review of MSB's "Project Blanco", or the "White Project" in the Maricunga Salar. The Colla people have consistently been using legal tactics to delay our project, in 2020 the Colla people made a appeal claim to our RCA award from the SEA related to the hydrologic model of the salar. At this same time our CEO made a separate appeal claim to our RCA award to add 3 additional control wells (there were already 33 control wells planned) which would strengthen the hydrologic model and allow better monitoring.
After two+ years of a full on administration review the SEA has rejected the appeal claim from the Colla people and partially accepted the appeal claim from our CEO to add the 3 control wells. This administrative review is the last legal hoop with the SEA that a company might have to jump through after award of a RCA when a separate group of people is using all legal tactics to delay a project. I might remind you all that the director of the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) in Chile is the secretary to the committee of ministers which is basically the cabinet of the government. This finalized administrative review of the project was sent out to all the ministers and their undersecretaries.
Here you will find the list of documents related to the administrative review and if you scroll down to the last document it is the one I am referencing. Also I am convinced that this news from the SEA is what precipitated the news article picked up by the Chile media where like 20 different publishers ran a story yesterday about how LPI/MSB will be the next lithium producer in Chile.
Now that the project has passed this review and the status of the project being communicated and processed by the new government shows that our project is on the mind of the new government. This along with the recent mentions of the CEO being enthusiastic about potential Public-Private partnership and the fact that the Chile government is actively looking for potential partners for the National Lithium Company which will be announced in the next week or two along with the National Lithium Policy. Bodes well for our position! The next few weeks will be great IMO.
