"Mexico to reserve future lithium production for government", 01 October 2021

Mexico said Friday it wants to declare lithium a “strategic mineral” and reserve any future exploration and mining for the government. The move is likely to leave Mexico’s only privately exploited mine, expected to start production in 2023, in the hands of a Chinese lithium company. The changes are contained in a bill that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has sent to congress...

“This bill establishes that only the government will be able to mine lithium,” López Obrador said. “That is, all the lithium in the nation’s soils, in our territory, belongs to Mexicans, the nation.”

However, Secretary of the Interior Adán López Hernández said that the eight concessions for mining lithium that have already been granted in Mexico would be respected, as long as they are well on the way to producing the metal, which is used in batteries.

López Hernández said it appears only one private mining company meets those criteria.

That appears to be a reference to Bacanora Lithium, a project in the northern border state of Sonora that hopes to produce 35,000 tons of lithium annually starting in 2023. That company recently accepted a buyout offer from Chinese lithium giant Ganfeng International...

López Obrador claims the private companies were given an unfair advantage over the state-run utility because they were guaranteed higher prices or did not have to pay for the cost of transmission...

The companies claim the president’s plan creates a de facto government monopoly, hurts competition and will make Mexicans buy dirtier, more expensive electricity...