SQM and Australia's richest person Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting, already Azure's two largest shareholders, teamed up in December to buy the lithium developer.
In December, Nippon agreed to buy US Steel for roughly $15 billion but the deal faces an uphill battle to approval amid bipartisan opposition in a US election year.
The frame agreement is a continuation of Metso’s and Almalyk MMC’s contract signed at the end of 2022 for the design and basic engineering work for the copper smelter.