Bolivia and India are working on plans to set up a lithium supply chain between the countries to serve joint venture battery production plants.
Lithium carbonate originating in Bolivia would be delivered to the battery/cell manufacturing facilities in India, according to an agreement signed by Indian president Ram Nath Kovind (pictured, left, with Bolivian president Evo Morales) during a state visit to Bolivia.
Under the terms of the deal, both sides “agreed to facilitate mechanisms for the commercialisation of lithium carbonate and potassium chloride produced in Bolivia by the state-owned exploration and refining firm Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos Corporación (YLB).”
The agreement did not specify a schedule for the creation of the battery factories or investment details.
India said the move would underpin its recently-announced ‘National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage’.
In 2018, YLB sealed a deal with Germany’s ACI Systems Alemania to cooperate on the extraction and industrialisation of lithium from Salar de Uyuni, southwest Bolivia.
