Lithium Concessions/CELAC Summit

Lithium Concessions. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that he will sign the granting of concessions to LitioMx for the exploitation purposes. “This mineral belongs to the nation. We are going to La Ventana in Sonora to deliver the concessions, but only to a national company.”

Previously, López Obrador reported that the government will start granting concessions for lithium exploitation on Feb 19. However, he made it clear that the only company that would be able to compete is LitioMx. According to López Obrador, the most important lithium deposit in Mexico is in Sonora, where the government is already working with the company holding the rights to produce the white gold: Gangfeng Lithium - which holds the concession for the Sonora Lithium project in Bacadehuachi. According to Gangfeng’s estimations, the deposit has approximately  8.8 million tonnes of lithium carbonate. Last year in September, the Governor of Sonora, Alfonso Durazo, said that Gangfeng was willing to work alongside LitioMx. 

LitioMx is the result of last year´s much-debated reform that nationalized lithium and forbade private companies to extract or harness the mineral.

CELAC. López Obrador said he was unable to attend the VII Summit of Heads of State of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Argentina, due to pending matters in the country.  However, the president stressed that Mexico is being represented at the summit by Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. "I have commitments in the country. Nevertheless, I am in favor of all the progressive plans in Latin America and the Caribbean. I even recorded a message and sent it."

The VII Summit began with a speech by Argentina´s President Alberto Fernández on the importance of uniting the region to achieve social justice and greater regional cooperation. Several Heads of state will participate in the summit, including the presidents of Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The presidents of Ecuador, US, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela will not be present at the meeting.

Miners’ Rescue. President López Obrador reported that the bodies of the miners trapped in the El Pinabete mine, Coahuila, will be rescued soon. The president stressed that rescuing efforts are going well , so he will ask the Coordinator of Civil Protection, Laura Velázquez to give a report. 

On Aug. 3, 15 miners were working at a depth of 60m in a coal mine located in Sabinas, Coahuila, when the walls of the tunnels collapsed, flooding the three pits. For a week, authorities had been draining the water to enter the mine and rescue the miners, whose health status remains unknown. At the time of the accident, five of the 15 mine workers managed to escape. For months, the relatives of the victims complained about the lack of transparency and progress of the authorities.