Excerpt from aljazeera.com
This year’s political moves surrounding Mexico’s lithium reserves have tested the limits of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s (AMLO) pledges to keep the country’s most precious natural resources firmly in Mexican hands.
In October, AMLO unveiled a sweeping energy reform bill that included nationalising Mexico’s lithium deposits as a strategic mineral – a move that threw into doubt China’s ability to lock in a critical reserve of lithium to support its green energy transition plans.
Also known as “white gold” and “the new oil”, lithium is a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries that are used for green energy storage, including powering electric vehicles.
China’s Ganfeng Lithium had set its sights on upping its stake in a massive lithium mining project in Mexico’s Sonora state by buying all the concessions held by its partner in the project, United Kingdom-based mining and exploration giant Bacanora.