El “pre-acuerdo” entre Codelco y SQM por el Salar de Atacama
Although the negotiation has been carried out in strict secrecy, it has suffered a series of reads that show that the government’s initial interest, which has to do with controlling the company with 51% of the shares, is not being fulfilled. Codelco, who is mandated by Corfo to carry out the negotiation, is advised by the Carey law firm, which has already been exposed for having a former director of SQM among its partners.
As it has transpired, there is already a pre-agreement emanating from the negotiating table between SQM and Codelco regarding the exploitation of lithium in the Salar de Atacama. As is well known, the government’s intention in extending the contract to SQM beyond 2030, is to enter as soon as possible to control the exploitation of Lithium during the current administration. With this, the government calculates, considerable resources could be added to the fiscal coffers to carry out their public policies.
However, SQM is not willing to give up control of the exploitation while the current contract is in force, so finally Máximo Pacheco, who must represent the public interest in the negotiation, would have yielded and agreed to a progressive and phased Codelco income. With this, Codelco would timidly enter exploitation, ” controlling it ” only only after 2030, once the validity of the current contract has ended.
According to sources within Codelco who have learned of the terms of a negotiation that has been sought to be kept completely secret, and who request to remain anonymous, there is already an agreement at the lithium negotiation table between SQM and the Government, created with the intention of the State taking control of the exploitation of lithium in the Salar de Atacama. As La Tercera had already published, SQM would not be willing to give up control in a new public-private company.
Due to this, as El Ciudadano had pointed out a month ago, the negotiation table loses meaning since the State will not control the exploitation of lithium before the present contract with SQM expires. Let us remember that after that, if there is no agreement in the negotiation, 100% of the resource belongs to the public treasury.
Although the negotiation has been carried out in strict secrecy, it has suffered a series of reads that show that the government’s initial interest, which has to do with controlling the company with 51% of the shares, is not being fulfilled. Codelco, who is mandated by Corfo to carry out the negotiation, is advised by the Carey law firm, which has already been exposed for having a former director of SQM among its partners.
A senior Codelco official explains to El Ciudadano the details of the pre-agreement between the copper company and Julio Ponce’s company. ” It’s very simple. The agreement that is being reached grants Codelco in 2024 to 15% stake in this public-private company that was created to exploit lithium from the Salar de Atacama. Then in 2026 it increases to 25%, in 2028 to 35% and only in 2030, as long as a series of conditions are met, Codelco acquires 51% of the company. But here it must be remembered that after 2030 the State has 100% if there is no agreement. So if Codelco controls in advance ( before 2030 ) it is the way in which SQM pays the State for its participation in exploitation after 2030, which is not guaranteed today.
But if Codelco does not control in advance, it means that the State is giving SQM the extension of the contract. This, since SQM would not be paying Codelco, in terms of shares, what the lithium exploitation is worth after 2030, when its contract expires. ” On the other hand, the same source indicates that Codelco’s 15% or 25% participation does not imply greater income for the State than what it currently receives from SQM with the current contract.
What is striking is that the terms of this pre-agreement only benefit SQM since it prevents the company historically controlled by Julio Ponce Lerou from having to compete with other companies for the 49% participation in the exploitation of the Salar de Atacama, which would also imply paying an amount at any time to enter the business (which is called Goodwill or key right) that many market players estimate at an approximate amount of 9 billion dollars.
Furthermore, it is striking that in the face of SQM’s refusal to allow the State to participate now in 51% of the lithium business in the world’s largest reserve of the non-metallic mineral, Pacheco has not informed Corfo, and has not opened a transparent and competitive international tender to define the company that offers the best environmental, social and economic conditions to associate with the State for the period after the end of the current contract with SQM. That was precisely the plan designed for the case in which SQM refused to let the State enter with 51% before 2030, so within Codelco there is surprise that Pacheco remained at the table, and reached this pre-agreement. .
In this context, the questions to Pacheco and the way in which they are carrying out the negotiations with SQM for the Salar de Atacama are causing noise among those who are aware of the negotiations, which adds to the credibility crisis that it has within of the public company for its poor management, which has led to the resignation of a significant number of Codelco directors and executives in key areas.
All of the above is added to the poor economic results of Codelco and to contradictory decisions, such as the purchase of 100% of the shares of the company that owns the ” Salar Blanco ” project to be developed in the Salar de Maricunga, the second lithium reserve. most important in the country, despite the fact that Codelco maintained until a few months ago in court that the assets of said company do not allow it to extract lithium.
To this we must add that the environmental qualification resolution of the ” White Project ” is being challenged by various indigenous communities before the environmental justice system, with several months remaining before the final decision can be known, which could imply that its environmental impact study be finally rejected. A source inside Codelco points out that “in this context, it is not understood how Pacheco wants to buy for 200 million dollars the shares of a company whose only asset is some belongs that until a few months ago Codelco said were worthless since they were not
They allowed lithium to be exploited, and it also has an environmental rating resolution that can be dropped. “It is an absurd operation that harms the state using money from a public company that is experiencing a deep crisis.”
In this scenario, many view with suspicion the reports that Máximo Pacheco would be being informally advised by an old friend from the times when he worked for the “International Paper Company” of the Matte group. This would be Guillermo Geisse, who has been director of Pampa Calichera, one of the cascade companies through which Julio Ponce Lerou participates in the ownership of SQM.
Added to the above is a series of former SQM who currently work for Codelco and are an active part in the negotiation as reported by El Ciudadano. The case of Jaime San Martín stands out, who currently holds the position of operations manager at Codelco, but who previously worked for more than 16 years for Ponce Lerou. San Martín joined SQM as deputy manager of metal development in 1997, became vice president of Mining Affairs in 2005, and vice president of Operations in 2006, a position he held for 7 years.
In that context, I have developed a close relationship with the former son-in-law of Augusto Pinochet, which he would maintain to this day. A negotiation that does not respect the Presidential mandate. President Gabriel Boric during his announcement of the National Lithium Strategy, pointing out that ” We are a serious country, we have respected and will continue to respect the current contracts and we know that in 2030 the lease contract to private parties for an important part of the Salar ends. of Atacama. For this reason, I have instructed Corfo to mandate Codelco to search for the best ways to achieve the participation of the State now before the expiration of the current contracts.”
After that, the president pointed out that when a public-private company is created “it will be controlled by the State through Codelco.”
” No longer mining for a few, we have to be able to distribute the benefits of our country among all Chileans, ” said Gabriel Boric.
But what is happening now is that Codelco would try to negotiate to take the lease contract from Corfo from 2031 without bidding as a new negotiating element. Which without a doubt is far from the presidential promise. One of the reasons why the government argued the need to negotiate with SQM, and enter the Salar de Atacama now, is because the high price of lithium will not last forever, but the negotiation is going in the opposite direction.
“The lease contract clearly says that the call for a new tender must be carried out before 2027, but the government, instead of opening the tender during its mandate and thereby receiving fresh income, has been taken down a dead-end path,” they point out to El Citizen.
Sources consulted by La Tercera have expressed that everything indicates that the space that the government has at the negotiating table is to enter with a minority percentage to participate, and that this percentage will increase over time, which means that in this government Chile would not control the lithium business. The negotiation table has lost its original meaning. SQM and Ponce Lerou once again have
the upper hand, negotiating sitting on both sides of the table.
