Codelco Files $12M Lithium Plan in New Chile Salt Flat

Chile’s Codelco Pedernales lithium filing opens a third salt-flat exploration front for the state miner, signaling that lithium diversification is becoming structurally central to the corporation’s strategy as the historical copper-output advantage slips away to private operators.

Chile’s state copper miner just opened a third lithium front. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that Codelco entered an environmental-evaluation filing Monday April 27 for a $12 million exploration project at the Salar de Pedernales in the Atacama Region — expanding Codelco’s lithium portfolio beyond its previously disclosed Atacama and Maricunga commitments.

The filing covers 114 sondaje boreholes across Codelco’s pre-existing land claims at the Pedernales salar. The $12 million budget is exploratory rather than developmental: the immediate objective is to characterize lithium-resource potential at the site, not to define a commercial production project. Standard environmental-evaluation processes in Chile typically take six to twelve months for projects at this scale.

The Codelco Pedernales Lithium Filing in Context

Codelco’s lithium strategy has historically centered on two flagship projects. NovaAndino Litio SpA — the joint venture with SQM formally launched in December 2025 — will control all lithium development in the Salar de Atacama through 2060, with Codelco holding 50 percent plus one share. The Chile Nuclear Energy Commission (CCHEN) has authorized extraction of up to 2.5 million metric tonnes of lithium metal between 2031 and 2060, with annual output potentially reaching 330,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent.

The second flagship is the Maricunga partnership with Rio Tinto, signed in May 2025. Rio Tinto committed up to $900 million for a 49.99 percent stake in a Codelco-controlled joint venture targeting first production by 2030 using direct-lithium-extraction (DLE) technology. Maricunga hosts one of the world’s highest-grade lithium-brine deposits but has never been commercially exploited.

Pedernales is conceptually different from both, sitting on Codelco’s existing pre-2024 land claims rather than under any joint-venture vehicle. The $12 million exploration filing represents a third strategic-resource bet by the state miner alongside the SQM and Rio Tinto partnerships. The salar is part of Chile’s broader Atacama-Region lithium-resource cluster but had not previously appeared in publicly disclosed Codelco lithium-portfolio communications.

The Strategic Backdrop: Escondida Sorpasso

The Pedernales filing arrives as Codelco confronts the most significant structural pressure in its corporate history. BHP’s Escondida produced 1.345 million tonnes of copper in 2025 according to Cochilco data — outproducing Codelco’s combined seven divisions for the first time. The “sorpasso” represents the moment a single privately operated mine surpassed the entire historical national-copper-champion structure of Chile.

Codelco’s underlying copper performance has been deteriorating for four consecutive years. 2024 production of 1.328 million tonnes marked the lowest level since the 1990s, with Q1 2026 production further declining 8 percent year-on-year to 271,300 tonnes. Operational issues including the July 2025 El Teniente rockburst (which killed six contractor workers), aging deposits, declining ore grades, and structural-project delays have collectively constrained output capacity.

President Kast’s government, which took office March 11, 2026, has framed Chile’s lithium framework as overly concentrated and pro-investment-restrictive. Mining Minister Daniel Mas has announced board changes at Codelco, including the impending replacement of board chair Máximo Pacheco (term ends May 25). Bernardo Fontaine Talavera, an economist and Kast adviser, is widely considered the likely successor — signaling a shift toward private-sector financial-discipline management.

What the Pedernales Filing Means for Global Lithium Markets

For battery-supply-chain analysts, the Pedernales addition extends Chile’s already substantial lithium-resource pipeline by one additional development site. Cochilco projects Chile will remain the world’s second-largest lithium producer behind Australia for the medium term, but with Argentina, China-controlled African brines, and new US/Canadian deposits applying competitive pressure. The Codelco multi-salar approach is increasingly important to maintaining Chile’s strategic position.

For Chilean equity investors, the filing reinforces a multi-year narrative of Codelco transitioning from a single-commodity copper-state-champion structure toward a diversified critical-minerals operator. Lithium revenues remain marginal versus copper today, but the optionality value of three concurrent salt-flat projects (Atacama via NovaAndino, Maricunga via Rio Tinto, Pedernales solo) provides strategic flexibility through the next two decades.

For international investors tracking Chile sovereign-credit risk and equity-flow positioning, the Pedernales filing carries a more nuanced signal: Codelco remains majority-state-owned and the Kast administration has begun discussing partial-privatization frameworks for select state assets. The corporation’s increasing exposure to lithium-cycle dynamics rather than purely copper cycles introduces revenue-mix diversification but also adds commodity-price-volatility exposure to a fiscal balance sheet that already depends heavily on copper-price stability. The structural question for the medium term: whether Chile’s strategic-mineral diversification is delivered through state-led platforms or through accelerated private-investment frameworks under the new pro-market government.