Inside Copiapó, the Maricunga Salar – the second with the highest concentration of lithium in the world – is home to territorial communities that complain about the poor relationship they maintain with Codelco, and denounce that the offers of a Dialogue Table to have a broad dialogue, They have been reduced to “setting up a WhatsApp group” and collecting information that “is not communicated or consented to by the communities.” For these people, these are “manifestations of bad faith.”
Although the President of Coldelco, Máximo Pacheco, has visited the area 4 times in the last year, the well-known president of the Colla Pai Ote Community, Ercilia Araya Altamirano, and ancestral authority of the Salar de Maricunga, describes it as “terrible management.” of community relationship” the relationship they have maintained until now with Codelco, a state copper company benefiting from a Ceol (Special Operation Contract, granted by the Ministry of Mining) in that Salar.
Codelco, in October 2023, acquired 100% of the shares of Minera Lithium Power, owner of the Blanco Project, which was approved by Australian authorities on March 5.
According to lithium business sources, with the purchase announced at the beginning of the month, Lithium Power shares will stop trading on the Australian Stock Exchange this Thursday the 14th, the date on which the state-owned company will pay Lithium Power for the ownership of Salar Blanco. International. Thus, the mining project will become the domain of Codelco as of this Friday, March 15.
With this step, the management of the president of the Codelco board of directors, Máximo Pacheco (PS), ends “successfully,” following a purchase-sale agreement known last October between the copper company and Lithium Power, until now the owner of Proyecto Blanco, which is located adjacent to the state firm’s properties in the Salar, according to industry executives.
“With this acquisition we are complying with the lithium strategy development plan that will make us one of the main suppliers of critical minerals worldwide. The responsible production of copper and lithium that the planet needs to enable the energy transition will be our main contribution to the fight against climate change, the president of the Codelco board of directors, Máximo Pacheco, assured the portal last week. Minning Press.
The annoyance of the colla communities
The acquisition was a bucket of cold water for the Colla communities that had already received Pacheco in their territories (Pai Ote, Pastos Grandes and Sinchy Wayra Communities) in May 2023 and, in addition, who had co-organized two seminars last May and September together with the Universities of Chile and Atacama, respectively, with the presence of Pacheco.
“We found out from the press,” said Ercilia Araya, president of the Pai Ote Community, whose protection appeal paralyzed the lithium tender in February 2022.
“After that, we met several times with Máximo Pacheco Matte, but it was always a coffee, a good conversation in personal terms, but without any statement about our substantive requests, not least the possibility of an agreement to regulate the relationship that should bind us from here to the future. She greets you, she flatters you, she has humor, she can even eat a casserole with you, but nothing more.”
While these conversations were taking place, and the annoyance of the communities was growing, the Colla ancestral authority affirms that an invitation arrived from Senator Yasna Provoste to meet with Pacheco in the Salar de Maricunga, on January 21, 2024.
It is in this context, according to the Colla Pai Ote Community, the socialist Máximo Pacheco told them that Codelco’s intervention will not cause environmental impact in the territory, and offered a document called “Agreement of Wills of the Collas and Codelco Communities”, in which Codelco is committed to respecting the commitments already acquired by Minera Salar Blanco SA with the communities within the framework of the acquisition of this company.”
“Communities are not compensated for salt and water use”
The president of the Pai Ote Community, Ercilia Araya, did not leave the meeting celebrating, rather annoyed. Also representatives of the Pastos Largos Community.
“We attended in good faith, and we appreciate the efforts of Senators Yasna Provoste (DC) and Rafael Prohens (RN) to bring positions closer together, but Codelco’s agreement proposal was humiliating. We are told that there will be dialogue and transparency, but we learned again from the press that the Australian authorities approved the purchase of Lithium Power. Likewise, Codelco has made visits to the Maricunga Salar to gather information, without notice or coordination with the communities,” says Araya.}
And he adds: “All the mining companies warn, they coordinate, because there must be respect for the territories and their inhabitants. Why do they promise dialogue and transparency if they don’t communicate at all? Worse, we learned from private actors that Codelco requested the modification of its Ceol, and that the Ministry of Mining authorized the modification. They do not warn anything, there is no transparency, nor advance notice of any element, neither the minors nor the majors.”
“We find it humiliating that we are offered an agreement to create a WhatsApp group, nIt seems disrespectful to you. Likewise, we believe that the Dialogue Table should be with Máximo Pacheco, not with intermediaries who have no power in the negotiation.“n, we are not for messengers, we want to talk with the head”, concludes the ancestral authority Colla a The counter.
“We will never sign this offer”
Ercilia Araya criticizes that “the worst thing is the last point of the agreement that indicates that Codelco undertakes to respect the benefits promised to the communities in the acquisition of Salar Blanco. It happens that this project only guarantees benefits to the Communities of Diego de Almagro to compensate for the road impact caused by the passage of trucks with lithium through their territory, but does not compensate the communities of Maricunga for the extraction of brine, for our right to water. This clause is a mockery, because we have sued Salar Blanco before the Environmental Court of Santiago for this discrimination, this arbitrariness, which compensates those who are far from the extraction and leaves those who are next to them without compensation. What does Pacheco want, that we give up defending our rights? “We are outraged by this offer, we will never sign it under those terms.”
Leader Colla points out that “this bad relationship is the responsibility of Máximo Pacheco. We already paralyzed the Piñera lithium tender, and we also canceled a lithium project in Maricunga. We ask for rationality on the part of the State. But we will not stop asking for care of the environment, respect for our culture, dignified negotiation, dignified treatment, that international standards be met, and we want Pacheco to stand up directly, without managers, consultants, Tironis or Mattas, alone he”.
“At Codelco we are going to give peace of mind to the colla communities”
From the state copper company they have a different vision. They point out that Pacheco has visited the communities surrounding the Salar de Maricunga on four occasions, that all agreements with Albermarle and Lithium Power acquired by the Colla will be respected, and that an indigenous consultation is even being prepared, which would take a year or less to be finalized. list.
“At Codelco we want to give peace of mind to the communities, we will understand each one of them, one by one, until they have a common opportunity to form a Coya Peoples Council. But to solve that, They need, among themselves, to resolve their leadership problems, where they sometimes fight. There are still pending definitions and they are very anxious, and we sent an agreement to improve the relationship and get closer,” says a Codelco manager in the Salar.
One of the authorities of the state company points out that there is a long time left, possibly more than a year, perhaps two, because before specifying an agreement on damages to the communities due to the use of water or salt, an indigenous consultation must be carried out, a partner must be obtained. that 49% wants, but “we are early” relating to the Colla and Atacama communities.
“On the 14th, we are going to pay for the LPI shares purchased in Australia, and on the 15th we are going to be the owners of those Albermarle mining companies, they become the property of Codelco, and there we just took possession of the company. We agreed that SQM is going to transfer all the belongings they have to Codelco. And then only in that minute will we have our historical belongings, plus those we bought in Australia, plus those from SQM. At that minute we will have 65% of the salt flat owned by Codelco. And then we are just going to go out and look for a partner to set up a public-private partnership, where we are the majority with 51%,” says an executive of the state company.
And he adds: “That society is the one that is going to formulate the project that we have just developed. And in that minute we are going to sit down with the communities to talk about that. We are going to respect all the commitments that this Australian company has, in Salar Blanco, and inform them step by step of the process that we are following so that they know that we are entering the properties of this company, that we are doing all this to formulate a project of lithium. There is dialogue with all communities.”
As explained by Codelco, in the Diego de Almagro community the project guarantees benefits that compensate for the road impact. However, in the case of Chillahua, Pai Ote, Pastos Largos and other communities that want compensation for salt extraction and the right to water, there would be confusion.
“Basically, the project that Salar Blanco had, which has an RCA, and an agreement with the community, is effectively done. But what we at Codelco are going to develop there is not the Salar Blanco project. It is a new project that combines the properties of Codelco, plus those that Salar Blanco has, plus the properties that we are receiving from SQM. So, that’s a new project. And it also requires that we formulate it and present it, and discuss it with the communities. Codelco could not reach an agreement with the communities based on the Salar Blanco project because that project is only part of the large project. But what is respected is what they had negotiated,” says a Codelco executive.
Likewise, they explain that there will be an indigenous consultation once a partner has been found to buy 49% of the new project in the Maricunga Salt Flats, and that the monthly dialogue table meetings have already begun.
“Any company that reaches the Salar has to dialogue with the communities”
There is also concern among legislators from the Atacama Region that relations reach a successful conclusion. Copypino senator Rafael Prohens (RN) – former mayor of Tierra Amarilla, the Governor of Atacama and former president of Deportes Atacama – trusts that the lithium agreement will end “really in aid for the development” of the indigenous peoples.
“With the agreement of wills that could be signed by the president of the board of directors of Codelco and the six communities that are in the vicinity of the Salar de Maricunga, it is shown that when there is a willingness to dialogue, an understanding is reached to be able to exploit Lithium, in the Salar from Maricunga. (…) This intention of wills must be a faithful copy of what was agreed between the communities of the Salar, the company and the region (…) Any company that reaches the Salar has to dialogue with the communities,” said Senator Rafael Prohens to The counter.
The parliamentarian for Atacama hopes that this will not only be a monetary benefit, but also that there will be training, infrastructure and other needs that the communities in the high mountain range need.
And the senator warns: “The other relevant thing about this agreement is that the agreements that Salar Blanco had with the communities are respected. Codelco makes it its own by putting it on the table as also part of the agreements signed with them. It is to be hoped that this agreement of wills, as defined, will be specified as soon as possible in an official document, and thus be calm and develop the project without setbacks. Maricunga is part of Atacama, therefore there must also be conversations with the region, with the communes that are involved as well as a research center that allows the development of Atacama in topics such as Astronomy, Paleontology, Education, Health and others, which are the shortcomings we have.”