{"id":147670,"date":"2019-11-18T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147670"},"modified":"2019-12-25T11:10:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T11:10:10","slug":"bolivian-coup-comes-less-than-a-week-after-morales-stopped-multinational-firms-lithium-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/bolivian-coup-comes-less-than-a-week-after-morales-stopped-multinational-firms-lithium-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm’s Lithium Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate cabals.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt flats hold the largest reserves of lithium in the world. (Photo: Psyberartist\/Flickr\/cc)<\/p><\/div>\n

11 Nov 2019 – <\/em>The Sunday military coup in Bolivia has put in place a government which appears likely to reverse a decision by just-resigned President Evo Morales to cancel an agreement with a German company for developing lithium deposits in the Latin American country for batteries like those in electric cars.<\/p>\n

“Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people,” tweeted<\/a> Washington Monthly<\/em> contributor David Atkins. “Not to multinational corporate cabals.”<\/p>\n

The coup, which on Sunday resulted in Morales resigning and going into hiding, was the result of days of protests from right-wing elements angry at the leftist Morales government. Sen. Jeanine A\u00f1ez, of the center-right party Democratic Unity, is currently the interim president in the unstable post-coup government in advance of elections.<\/p>\n

Investment analyst publisher\u00a0Argus<\/em> urged investors to keep an eye on the developing situation and noted that gas and oil production from foreign companies in Bolivia had remained steady.<\/p>\n

The Morales move on Nov. 4 to cancel<\/a> the December 2018 agreement<\/a> with Germany’s ACI Systems Alemania (ACISA) came after weeks of protests from residents of the\u00a0Potos\u00ed area. The region has 50% to 70% of the world’s lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.<\/p>\n

Among other clients, ACISA provides batteries to Tesla; Tesla’s stock rose Monday after the weekend.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Bloomberg News<\/em> noted<\/a> in 2018, that has set the country up to be incredibly important in the next decade:<\/p>\n

Demand for lithium is expected to more than double by 2025. The soft, light mineral is mined mainly in Australia, Chile, and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty\u20149 million tons that have never been mined commercially, the second-largest\u00a0amount in the world\u2014but until now there’s been no practical way to mine and sell it.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Morales’ cancellation of the ACISA deal opened the door to either a renegotiation of the agreement with terms delivering more of the profits to the area’s population or the outright nationalization of the Bolivian lithium extraction industry.<\/p>\n

As Telesur<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in June, the Morales government announced at the time it was “determined to industrialize Bolivia\u00a0and has invested huge amounts to ensure that lithium is processed within the country to\u00a0export it only in value-added form,\u00a0such as in batteries.”<\/p>\n

It’s unclear what the next steps are for the industry in a post-coup Bolivia, according to<\/a> global intelligence analysis firm Stratfor<\/em>:<\/p>\n

In the longer term, continued political uncertainty will make it more difficult for Bolivia to increase its production of strategic metals like lithium or develop a\u00a0value-added sector in the battery market<\/a>. The\u00a0poor investment climate comes at a time of expanding global opportunities in lithium-ion battery production to meet\u00a0rising demand from electric vehicle manufacturing<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ACISA told German broadcaster\u00a0DW<\/em> last week that the company was “confident that our lithium project will be resumed after a phase of political calmness and clarification.”<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Morales resigned<\/a>.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commondreams.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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