India Targets SQM’s Australian Lithium To Diversify Its Imports – Sociedad Quimica Y Minera (NYSE:SQM)

India needs to safe a stake in Chilean mining chief SQM’s SQM tasks in Australia. This deal would give India, a lithium importer, entry to important battery minerals to cater to its rising market.

In line with nameless sources cited by Reuters unique report, the Indian consortium, led by Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL), is pursuing stakes in SQM’s Mount Holland and Andover lithium tasks in Western Australia. Per preliminary estimates, a 20% stake in these tasks could be price round $600 million.

“That is thus far India’s greatest try and safe lithium provides abroad. The due diligence is on, and the businesses have expressed their curiosity with an preliminary supply,” a supply advised Reuters.

India’s EV gross sales made up simply 2.5% of the over 4 million vehicles bought in 2024. Nevertheless, the expansion velocity of 20% within the yr far outpaced most different markets, prompting the stakeholders to safe a provide of this important steel from SQM, the world’s second-largest producer.

Sourcing Australian lithium would assist the fastest-growing main financial system transfer from its shut dependence on imports from China and Hong Kong.

Whereas India introduced a 5.9-million-tonne lithium discovery in Jammu and Kashmir in 2023, these tasks have stalled thus far, as two failed public sale makes an attempt revealed weak investor curiosity.

Initially hailed as a breakthrough, these tasks confronted geological and technical challenges. Moreover, trade specialists argue that the reported lithium content material is way decrease than the Geological Survey of India (GSI) initially claimed, and the deposit’s clay-based composition makes extraction troublesome owing to the presence of potassium, aluminum, silicon, and fluorine.

Furthermore, as a supply of battle between India and Pakistan, the area’s political instability has deterred potential traders. Tensions stay excessive since India revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous standing in 2019.

Though GSI pursued exploration in Odisha, Karnataka, and Rajasthan, the main points of these efforts stay unknown. Moreover, final yr, KABIL signed an settlement with the Argentinian state-owned CAMYEN, securing exploration and exploitation rights for 15,700 hectares within the province of Catamarca.

Nonetheless, mine improvement is a gradual and complicated course of, typically taking on a decade to achieve full-scale manufacturing. Thus, India’s newest transfer indicators that the federal government has acknowledged that ready to develop a home provide will not be a viable short-term resolution.

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