{"id":18861,"date":"2023-04-21T08:34:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T08:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/factbox-chile-lithium-move-latest\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T08:42:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T08:42:40","slug":"factbox-chile-lithium-move-latest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/factbox-chile-lithium-move-latest\/","title":{"rendered":"Factbox-Chile lithium move latest in global resource nationalism trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matthew Chye<\/p>\n

(Reuters) – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric announced on Thursday he would nationalise the country’s vast lithium industry to boost the economy and protect the environment.<\/p>\n

The shock announcement is the latest in a trend as countries look to assert greater control over key resources amid intensifying competition for materials that are crucial to the energy transition.<\/p>\n

Recent moves by governments globally to take more control of their natural resources:<\/p>\n

CHILE<\/p>\n

* Home to the world’s largest lithium reserves, Chile said it will over time transfer control of its vast lithium operations from industry giants SQM and Albemarle to a separate state-owned company.<\/p>\n

Chile is the world’s second largest producer of lithium, a key component in batteries used in electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Last July, Chile’s finance minister introduced a tax reform bill that increases copper mining royalties on companies that produce more than 50,000 tonnes a year and raises taxes on high-income earners, increasing state participation in mining income.<\/p>\n

In January, a Chilean congressional committee approved the mining royalty bill, putting it a step closer to final approval, despite having drawn strong criticism from industry.<\/p>\n

MYANMAR<\/p>\n

* In April, Myanmar’s ethnic minority Wa militia said it will suspend all work at mines in areas it controls from August, a move that triggered a surge in the price of tin, a material used in electronics and semiconductors.<\/p>\n

Myanmar accounted for 77% of China’s tin ore imports last year, Chinese customs data showed. The Wa-controlled region is estimated to have accounted for over 70% of Myanmar’s tin production in 2022, according to the International Tin Association.<\/p>\n

INDONESIA<\/p>\n

* A resource powerhouse, Indonesia is tightening controls over various materials in a push to develop local downstream operations and extract greater value.<\/p>\n

Once one of the world’s biggest exporters of nickel, in June 2020 Indonesia banned exports of the metal’s ore while it sought to develop a full nickel supply chain, starting from extraction, processing into metals and chemicals used in batteries, all the way to building electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

Last October, President Joko Widodo said Indonesia was exploring a possible ban on tin exports, and calculations about its potential impact had begun, after the world’s top tin exporter had already moved to halt shipments of a number of other metals in order to develop more processing at home.<\/p>\n

In December, Widodo confirmed an export ban for bauxite starting in June 2023 as scheduled, to encourage domestic processing of a material used as the main ore source of aluminium.<\/p>\n

More export bans will also be announced in the coming years in order to develop resource processing industry onshore, he said, speaking at an economic forum.<\/p>\n

MEXICO<\/p>\n

* In February, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador signed a decree handing over responsibility for lithium reserves to the energy ministry, after nationalizing lithium deposits in April 2022.<\/p>\n

ZIMBABWE<\/p>\n

* In December 2022, Zimbabwe imposed a ban on the export of unprocessed lithium, in a bid to stop artisanal miners who the government says are digging up and taking the mineral across borders.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Matthew Chye; Editing by Tony Munroe and Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n

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By Matthew Chye (Reuters) – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric announced on Thursday he would nationalise the country’s vast lithium industry to boost the economy and protect the environment. The shock announcement is the latest in a trend as countries look to assert greater control over key resources amid intensifying competition for materials that are crucial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K08J-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18863,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18861\/revisions\/18863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}