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SQM is seeking a partner for its international operations as the world’s second-biggest lithium supplier looks to step up its presence outside of home-base Chile, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Santiago-based firm is offering a minority stake in its recently formed international lithium division as a way of financing investments, mainly in Australia, the people said, asking not to be named as talks are private.
The partner search, which is being run by JPMorgan Chase & Co., is at an early stage and is focused on investment funds and strategic investors rather than other mining companies, they said.
SQM and JPMorgan declined to comment.
Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, as SQM is formally known, is looking to expand in top-producing lithium nation Australia, and gain footholds in new frontiers such as Africa, as it prepares to relinquish a majority stake in its prized Atacama brine operations in Chile.
Taking a roughly 15% stake in the division would give an investor direct exposure to lithium assets as opposed to a capital increase by the parent company, which also has iodine and fertilizer operations in Chile. Raising funds with a strategic investor may also be preferable to tapping markets at a time when the industry is grappling with low prices in a global glut.
Fresh funds may help SQM expand its new Mt. Holland mine and develop the Andover project, both in Western Australia, as well as discover new deposits around the world. In recent months, SQM agreed to join a lithium project in Sweden and entered an earn-in arrangement in Namibia.
In May, the company agreed to a deal with Codelco that would see the state copper behemoth take control of its Chilean operations after 2030, when current licenses expire, in exchange for three more decades of operations. The tie-up is part of Chile’s agenda to have more state control in key lithium assets while boosting output in the shift away from fossil fuels.
SQM is plowing ahead with expansions at its low-cost Atacama operations in a bet on growing market share as other producers curtail output and spending in response to slumping prices.
(By James Attwood and Thomas Biesheuvel)
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