[News] Colla Community faces Codelco for the purchase of Australian firm Lithium Power

[FNX Magokiler]

Colla authority Ercilia Araya says that the purchase of Lithium Power by Codelco is “bad news” for her community, since on October 26, in the First Environmental Court of Santiago, arguments will be made for a colla lawsuit against the mining company. “You buy a questioned project,” she says.

After Bloomberg revealed that Codelco bought all the shares of the Australian Lithium Power International (LPI) for US$ 244 million, and various financial media around the world highlighted the operation for Chile, the purchase found strong rejection in the community. of the Maricunga Salt Flats in Atacama. “We are studying a lawsuit for the agreement between Codelco and Lithium Power,” the Colla ancestral authority, Ercilia Araya, tells El Mostrador from Pai Ote.

“Sister Ercilia” points out that the purchase of Lithium Power by the state mining company has been “a bucket of cold water” for her community, since this October 26, in the First Environmental Court of Santiago, the allegations will be made against the Blanco Project, the Australian mining company's main asset.

“We do not understand how this can be a business for Chile, buying a project currently questioned in the courts,” she told El Mostrador.

 

 

As “an unpleasant surprise and terrible news for Chile and for the Colla territorial communities,” Ercilia Araya, Ancestral Authority of the Maricunga Salt Flats and President of the Colla Pai Ote Community, described the announcement of the purchase of the Australian company Lithium Power by part of Codelco, which includes the acquisition of the so-called “White Project”.

“We sued them a year ago before the Environmental Courts for not carrying out indigenous consultation”
The colla leader, known worldwide for having demanded Sebastián Piñera's lithium tender and then annulled the environmental authorization of the Simco Project, of the Errázuriz group, announced that her community is studying "suing the Codelco-Lithium Power agreement, since Codelco has announced the purchase of a lithium project that we sued a year ago before the Environmental Courts, for not carrying out indigenous consultation and violating our community's right to water. The Environmental Evaluation Service authorized it despite this. In fact, they only consulted three communities far from Maricunga, located in Diego de Almagro, affected by road impact, due to being close to the road where the extracted lithium will be transported, but they did not consult the community of the territory where the brine will be extracted. which is territory of the Pai Ote Community.”

 

https://www.elmostrador.cl/mercados/2023/10/26/comunidad-colla-se-enfrenta-a-codelco-por-compra-de-firma-australiana-lithium-power/