The Salar de Atacama is a salt-encrusted depression in the Atacama Desert, within which lies an underground deposit of brines contained in porous sodium chloride rock fed by an underground inflow from the Andes mountains, which is the result of millions of years of climatic and tectonic impacts. Deposit Types The Salar de Atacama brine deposit is contained within porous media filled with interstitial brine rich in Li, K, and boron among other ions. The Salar de Atacama nucleus is constituted by a thick section of evaporites over a surface area of 1,100 square km and up to a depth of 900 m (Bevacqua, 1992; Xterrae, 2011). It is surrounded by a marginal zone of clastic sediments over an area of about 2,000 square km of extension (Díaz del Río, et al., 1972). The nucleus is mainly constituted by halite (>90%) with sulfate and a minor percentage of clastic sediments as well as some interbedded clay sediments and sulfates. Therefore, the Salar de Atacama is classified as a mature salt flat, according to the site geology and Houston, et al. (2011) classification. Property Geology Upper Halite This unit comprises pure halite and halite with clastic sedimentary material and/or gypsum. The clastic sedimentary material comprises clay, silt, and sand, which are more abundant near surface and decrease with increasing depth. The Upper Halite has a mean thickness of 17 m in the West Block and 23 m in the East Block. In the West Block, the Upper Halite is underlain by a clay lens, gypsu ........

SQM’s mining operation at Salar de Atacama utilizes brine extraction from pumping wells. Brine extraction is characterized by the construction of vertical pumping wells capable of pumping brine from the subsurface reservoir. The brine is accumulated in different gathering ponds for distribution to the evaporation ponds and metallurgical plants.

The utilized mining method of brine extraction by pumping wells does not require the development of geotechnical studies, because operations are executed without significant excavation. Furthermore, the dominant lithology in the salt flat nucleus (massive evaporites) is typically stable from a geotechnical perspective. However, the mining process includes some salt dumps. These salt dumps have a maximum height of 30 m (environmental restriction). SQM undertook a geotechnical analysis, concluding that the design of the dumps is stable according to the current operating conditions.

Integrated production process can be classified according to natural resources: brines from the Salar de Atacama, which contain potassium, lithium, sulfate, boron and magnesium.

Brines are pumped from depths of 15 to 150 meters below surface, through a field of wells that are located in the Salar de Atacama, distributed in areas authorized for exploitation, and which contain relatively high concentrations of potassium, lithium, sulfates, boron and other minerals. The brines are estimated to cover a surface of approximately 2,80 ........

The purpose of the mine is to produce potassium chloride (KCl), potassium sulfate (K2SO4), lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), and lithium hydroxide (LiOH). The raw material for both processes is brine extracted from available salt properties, containing potassium, lithium, sulfates, boron, and magnesium. This brine is fed into evaporation pond, where different salts are precipitated. As a result of the evaporation step, a brine enriched in Li+ ions are obtained. This lithium-rich brine is fed into a lithium carbonate production plant, which consists of purification stages to remove boron, calcium, and magnesium, a lithium carbonate precipitation stage, and a solid/liquid separation stage. Finally, one part is diverted to a drying, micronization, and packaging stage, and another part is diverted for lithium hydroxide production.

SQM's production process is characterized by being integrated, i.e., exchanging raw materials and products with each other. The processes involved in the pr ........