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lithium--wish I had an investment tool? Anybody?

Battery-hungry world turns to South America's 'lithium triangle'

http://share.thomsonreuters.com/assets/newsletters/Inside_Metals/IM_STORIES_03162016.pdf

Far from the soy and cattle that dominate its vast fertile pampas, Argentina harbors another valuable commodity that is rocketing in price and demand and luring newly welcomed foreign investors.

Lithium, the so-called "white petroleum", drives much of the modern world. It forms a small but essentially irreplaceable component of rechargeable batteries, used in consumer devices like mobile phones and electric cars. It also has pharmaceutical and other applications.

Over half of the earth's identified resources of the mineral are found in South America's "lithium triangle", an otherworldly landscape of high-altitude lakes and bright white salt flats that straddles Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

Until recently, that was not great news for investors. Argentina and Bolivia lacked predictability and a friendly business environment, while Chile kept strict control over lithium output.

But that may be all about to change.

In Chile, a sale of state lithium deposits and a shake-up in the way the country manages its resources has awakened interest from everyone from early-stage mining companies to electric carmakers like Tesla.

In Argentina, already the world's no. 3 lithium producer after Chile and Australia, investors are hopeful that the new Mauricio Macri government that took over in December will herald a brighter future. Business-friendly Macri has begun making sweeping changes in a bid to return the country to economic orthodoxy, removing onerous capital controls and sending a message that the country is open for business again after more than a decade of protectionism.

"For 10 or 12 years, (Argentina) was a do-not-invest zone. The tone of doing business has just swung 180 degrees," said Tom Hodgson, the chief executive of Western Lithium, which is developing a project in the country due to begin production next year.

Argentina now has a "major opportunity" to build a lithium export business, Hodgson told Reuters earlier this month at a mining conference in Toronto.

Western Lithium is working with Korean steelmaker POSCO, whose chairman was in Argentina last month to meet with Macri and begin the construction of a new lithium plant, due to begin commercial production within a year. The exploratory mining company Orocobre is also developing a project.

But the company perhaps best set to benefit from an Argentine lithium revolution is U.S. agricultural and chemical conglomerate FMC Corp.
FMC is already producing lithium from the Salar de Hombre Muerto salt flat in northern Argentina. Lithium provides a small but growing part of FMC's revenues, with forecast sales of around $250 million this year. "Now the (Argentine) administration is starting to change policy, it's giving us even more confidence that it will be a predictable and cost-effective operation," FMC Lithium Vice-President Tom Schneberger said.
"We expect significant year-over-year improvement for lithium in 2016 and we see that going clear to 2020."

Demand for lithium is set to outstrip supply by 2023, according to specialist consultants Stormcrow Capital, with the lion's share coming from rechargeable batteries.