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Mines/Chile

Salar de Atacama (SQM / Nova Andino Litio) mine

Salar de Atacama (SQM / Nova Andino Litio) mine, Chile. Producing, brine, mining lithium, potash.

Why Salar de Atacama (SQM / Nova Andino Litio) is famous

Chile's Salar de Atacama brine fields. SQM reports that its Chilean lithium carbonate capacity reached 180,000 t a year after the 2022 expansions. Albemarle holds 100% of its own Salar de Atacama brine operation.1,2,3

Story cards

What kind of deposit

Lithium brine (salar)

Salar de Atacama (SQM / Nova Andino Litio) today

Where lithium is mined todayWhere potash is mined todayMining in Chile

Where next

Mines

Same kind of depositSilver PeakNevada's only lithium brine plant, and Chile's brine fields that reached 180,000 t a year.1Same kind of depositOlarozChile's brines and Jujuy's Olaroz sit on salt pans pumped for lithium.1

Deposit types

An example ofLithium brine (salar)A working example of the lithium brine (salar) type.4

Sources

  1. Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SEC)
  2. Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025 Albemarle Corporation (SEC)
  3. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  4. Critical Mineral Resources of the United States (PP 1802), Chapter K: Lithium US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Pictures: Salar de Atacama, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0).