French mining company Eramet has acquired Tsingshan Group’s 49.9% stake in Eramine Sudamerica for $699m (€645.83m) to regain full ownership of its Argentinian subsidiary.
Eramet’s Argentinian subsidiary is strategically positioning itself to fully control the development of the Centenario lithium project.
The company has now decided to strategically allocate capital to regain full ownership, enabling it to fully control the ongoing development of the project.
Eramet holds mining concessions in the Centenario and Arizaro salars in Argentina, which are among the largest lithium brine deposits in the ‘Lithium Triangle’.
The total drainable mineral resources of Centenario exceed 15 million tonnes (t) of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), with an average concentration of 407mg per litre of lithium in the brine.
This supports a long-term production capacity currently estimated at more than 75,000t of LCE.
Construction of Centenario’s first lithium carbonate extraction plant began in October 2021.
Inaugurated in July 2024, the new plant has a nameplate capacity of 24,000t of LCE per annum and is poised to be in the first quartile of the industry cost curve.
The facility is highly automated and utilises one of the most advanced direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies, aligning with the highest standards for responsible mining.
Currently in the final stages of commissioning, the plant will begin production in the coming weeks, and this transaction will not affect the project delivery and operational plan.
This transaction represents a counter-cyclical expansion for Eramet, doubling its share of production and providing the company with increased market flexibility and optionality to develop its portfolio of tier-one lithium assets.
Eramet Group chair and CEO Christel Bories said: “Today’s transaction marks a milestone in our development in lithium, a critical metal for energy transition, poised to experience a sustained high growth in demand in the coming years.
“This strategic move enables us to unlock the full potential of our Centenario world-class deposit and comes also at the right time in the context of cyclically low market prices for lithium.
“Taking advantage of the strong liquidity of the Group to execute the transaction, we will soon become the first Western company using a next-generation DLE technology to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate at industrial scale, confirming our technological and sustainable leadership across the entire lithium value chain.”
In July this year, Eramet engaged in talks with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to establish a partnership for producing battery-grade nickel in Indonesia.
