Earthmoving and pond civil works in the Catamarca puna
A lithium pond is, first of all, a million cubic meters of soil moved at 4,100 meters. Tres Quebradas' contractor publishes the complete bill of quantities and there is the market with nobody's estimates: for each 200-hectare stage, 2.1 million m² of crust to break, 662,800 m³ of borrow excavation, 242,300 m³ of berms and 420,500 m³ of floor prob bill of quantities published by the contractor, in eight months that include winter, with winds of up to 120 km/h and temperatures of −30 °C. And here the diagnosis flips versus almost every other business in the province: this category does exist in Catamarca —31 construction companies and 12 equipment rental firms in the category map the provincial mining suppliers' chamber published in 2023— and there is a joint venture of three Catamarca companies in charge of 60 kilometers of road above 4,000 meters, with 15% progress as of February 2026 prob press; the award to that joint venture was published by the provincial press in August 2024 prob El Ancasti, 31-Aug-2024. The problem is not capability: it is that both pond packages tendered went to the same joint venture from outside, and the only open and proven door is to enter as a partner.
A window: the ponds and platforms are built 2026-2031 with four projects under construction at once; afterwards demand falls to road and civil maintenance in operation.
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What the market is made of
The TAM is activity, not what you will invoice — but here the split has a peculiarity: a cubic meter is not imported. Zijin's Chinese chain brought the geomembrane from China and, to move the soil, hired an Argentine joint venture. So what is captive is not foreign trade: it is the contracting structure — what the head of the contract executes with its own fleet and what the operator prefers to buy as equipment rather than contract. Your gap is the items the lead releases (crust breaking, roads, rental with an operator), operating maintenance and the complete package if you enter via a joint venture.
~USD 27 M/year (~60% of the TAM): what the extra-provincial lead executes with its own fleet —the largest block and the key difference from geosynthetics, because earthmoving IS the scope of the contract leads, not a specialized sub-scope they subcontract entirely—.
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~USD 8-18 M/year addressable by a local/domestic entrant (midpoint ~USD 13 M/year): the items the lead does release —crust breaking (USD 2.1-4.2 M per stage), equipment rental with an operator, transport of equipment and borrow material, mobilization, internal roads, drainage and minor civil works—, plus a complete pond package via a joint venture with a local partner (with a local precedent; local high-altitude capability proven on RP 43), plus almost the entire perpetual core of road and civil maintenance in operation, which is local by nature.
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USD 1.5-5 M/year for ONE entrant within 2-3 years (midpoint ~USD 3 M/year). Year 1: equipment rental with an operator on an open front plus a crust breaking sub-scope (USD 0.5-3 M). Year 2: internal roads and minor platforms plus a maintenance retainer at 1-2 operations (USD 1-3 M/year recurring — this is what survives 2031). Year 3: a 50-100 ha pond package via a joint venture (USD 3-12 M per contract). The complete 200 ha package (USD 13-24 M) is not won in year one: it is won with certified m³ and with a surety bond secured.
Who really pays?
In three of the four ways in, whoever signs the purchase order is not the mine but the contractor who won the package. There are three doors and they are quoted differently:
At Tres Quebradas both stages were contracted by LIEX S.A. (Zijin) with a joint venture of companies from other provinces: 200 hectares executed and 200 under way, with the bill of quantities published in the project sheet. A figure that corrects the easy analogy: the Chinese operator did not bring a Chinese contractor — it hired an Argentine joint venture.
Whoever wins the package is an earthmover and earthmoving is its scope: it does not subcontract it whole, it releases items. That is where the local firm comes in. The precedent of how it is done at a larger scale: a Catamarca partner came into the joint venture of two contractors from other provinces on the USD 130 M EPC for Sal de Vida's plant.
At Fénix it was done by a Rosario construction company in phases 1 and 2 of the expansion, on the salar: its published scope runs from site preparation earthmoving to concrete foundations, the brine pipeline, the roads and pavements and the earthmoving for the ponds. The subsequent maintenance —access roads cut off by snow, pond edges, platforms— is local by nature: it is answered in hours.
Which projects move this demand
Tres Quebradas stage 2: plant and infrastructure for 40,000 t/year of lithium carbonate via direct extraction (DLE), per art…
see the project →Lithium brine project in the Salar del Hombre Muerto (western zone), to produce 12,000 t/yr of lithium carbonate equivalent…
see the project →Expansion (Phase 1B) of the historic Fénix lithium-carbonate project in the Salar del Hombre Muerto, operated by Rio Tinto via Minera del Altiplano…
see the project →When the window opens
In earthmoving the warning arrives months ahead: the pond is quantified in a permit before it is tendered and it is the first job on the schedule. Two fronts are still live —Tres Quebradas stage 2 and Hombre Muerto Oeste— and two are winding down: Fénix Expansión closes construction in November 2026 and Sal de Vida Stage 1 is already in commissioning. And within each year there is a cut-off that is no longer a weather impression: since January 2026 a provincial resolution establishes a winter procedure from 1 May to 30 September (or earlier, if conditions in the area warrant it). The campaign does not stop, but it is planned differently. These four numbers are the ones that give notice.
See the evidence
See the evidence
See the evidence
Sal de Vida Stage 2 is 5.98 M m³ = 41% of the volume ceiling, and it is a 'very preliminary' Class 4 estimate for years 3-40 of the mine plan, not sanctioned. It is the largest block and the most fragile: if the price does not cooperate, the TAM ceiling collapses on its own. The floor of the range already assumes it is not done.
3Q Phase 2 already has its RIGI resolution published —29-Jul-2026, with USD 594,136,000 verif of computable investment—, so the risk is no longer that the act will not come out.
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It is the local equivalent of 'direct import': a m³ is not imported, but the lead contractor can execute everything with its own fleet and the operator can buy equipment instead of contracting (at MARA, 10.1% of capex in own equipment against 21.6% in mine contractor).
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The 50/50 split of the disputed Hombre Muerto strip is voided once Congress settles the boundary verif annex to Salta's Ley 8524.
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See the remaining 6 risks
Here it bites harder than in any other niche: breaking the crust IS the physical intervention on the salt flat that is being challenged — 210 ha of broken crust per package.
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It is the politically hottest segment precisely because there are local bidders: in Jun-Jul 2026 CAPROMITI denounced that Zijin-Liex hired a hauler from Córdoba and threatened road blockades in Fiambalá, with the Catamarca Transport Chamber and the Fiambalá Economic Chamber demanding compliance with the 70% local-purchase requirement prob provincial press.
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Past the peak, demand falls to road and civil maintenance in operation: USD 2-10 M/year for the whole province.
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Fénix is selective adsorption, Kachi is ion exchange, 3Q is hybrid and Rio Tinto states 'Design One, Build Many': every new tonne through DLE is pond that does not get built.
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If MARA is sanctioned, it competes for the same base of 31 construction firms and 4 trucking companies: its initial capex allocates USD 601 M to 'mine contractor' and USD 341 M to Agua Rica infrastructure verif PFS(B), a multiple of the entire lithium pipeline.
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RP 43 shows it: for Section I there was a single bid, of more than ARS 33,000 million against an official budget of ARS 24,353 million, 35% above it prob El Ancasti, 31-Aug-2024.
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The opportunity in depth
The opportunity in depth
Equipment rental with an operator to whoever is already on site. The only door that does not require winning a tender — and the front of Tres Quebradas' stage 2 is open today, in equipment mobilization and crust breaking. That same chamber listed 12 rental firms in 2023, but what they offer is 4x4s, lighting towers and chemical toilets: heavy equipment suitable for 4,100 meters, with an operator and on-site maintenance, is a different product.
Crust breaking as a sub-scope. The perfect entry item: 2.1 million m² per stage (USD 2-4 M), low technology content, zero liner risk because it is executed before the geomembrane exists, it is the first item on the schedule —so it gets invoiced early— and the lead subcontracts it without resistance because it does not move the package's margin.
Internal roads, minor platforms and the maintenance retainer. USD 1-3 M a year, recurring. It is the only thing that survives 2031, and it is structurally local: an access cut off by snow or an eroded shoulder is solved in hours, not by mobilizing a fleet from Rosario. It is the line that turns a job into a client.
A pond package of your own, via a joint venture with a local partner. 50-100 hectares is USD 3-12 M; the complete 200 ha package, USD 13-24 M. The vehicle is the one the rule itself designs —a joint venture with at least 50% local suppliers— and it has two precedents: a Catamarca partner inside Sal de Vida's USD 130 M EPC, and a joint venture of three Catamarca companies on Section I of RP 43, at puna elevation, awarded in August 2024 with a bid of more than ARS 33,000 million prob. It is not a legal acrobatic: it is this market's normal route.
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When you get paid, and what blocks it
already in
split
The two halite pond stages of Tres Quebradas for LIEX S.A. (Zijin): 200 ha executed + 200 ha under way, with a bill of quantities published by the contractor prob (4.18 M m² of crust breaking, 662,800 m³ of borrow, 404,300 m³ of berms, 794,500 m³ of floor and base course prob) and an 8-month schedule including winter.
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Civil works for the Fénix expansion, phases 1 and 2, status 'Executed' in the Catamarca puna, with the verbatim scope the project declares: site preparation earthmoving, reinforced concrete foundations, brine pipeline and drainage, fire water network, earthing, drains and underground works, roads, pavements and fencing, an equalization pond with geomembrane, earthmoving for the 'Piletas Ponds', a biodigester and a nitrifying bed.
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The only documented precedent of a local partner inside a large package, with an amount and with a clause giving priority hiring to residents of Antofagasta de la Sierra under a 70/30 policy. It is the niche's entry route.
Section I of RP 43: 60.3 km of earthworks and paving between Antofagasta de la Sierra and the border with Salta, with 15% physical progress as of February 2026 prob.
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See the remaining 6 players
A vertical integration threat: it sells the integrated pond package (geological and geotechnical assessment, design, grading, construction, geomembrane installation, containment berms and fill supervision) verif. If it comes in, it takes earthmoving and liner together and closes the subcontract door from both sides.
The 2023 registry (19 categories, exactly 123 memberships) declares 31 construction companies with 'modular housing, civil works, earthmoving and road maintenance' and 12 vehicle and equipment rental firms —whose declared description is 4x4s, lighting towers, aerial work platforms and chemical toilets, i.e. it does NOT evidence a heavy fleet—. None is named in a pond package. It is at once the entrant's competing base and its pool of joint-venture partners. A 2023 count: verified as a citation, out of date as a measurement of today's supply (the Re.P.E.M. went from 194 in May-2025 to 229 in May-2026).
They do not execute a single m³: they write the geotechnical specification and the QA plan —pond floor elevations, tolerances, compaction densities, tests— and they decide what gets certified and who qualifies. Technical homologation goes through them, not through the provincial counter.
At MARA, 'mine equipment' is 10.1% of the initial capex (USD 281 M) against 'mine contractor' at 21.6% (USD 601 M) verif: the buy-vs-contract decision is explicit and the supplier does not control it. Rio Tinto also buys its own salt harvesting fleet verif. Every m³ the operator does with its own equipment never reaches the market.
A figure that corrects the analogy with san juan: in the province's largest package, the Chinese operator did NOT bring in a Chinese contractor — it hired an Argentine joint venture. It did import the geomembrane (20 trucks via the Paso San Francisco). In earthmoving there is no importable m³: the risk of 'direct import through the operator's chain' exists but did not materialize in the measured case.
From Catamarca, from ANDALGALÁ -the department with 36 registrations in the Re.P.E.M., second after the capital-. Declared activities: construction, repair and restoration of transport infrastructure works; wholesale of construction materials; Rental of machinery AND equipment without an operator; road freight transport including specialized freight; and manufacture of non-metallic mineral products. It appears in the supplier registry of CAMYEN, the provincial State mining company. It is the exact profile of the equipment rental firm this niche identifies as the local leg of earthmoving. What is not proven: not a single work front was documented for it on the Salar del Hombre Muerto lithium projects; its presence is evidenced in the province and in the category, not on the salar.
The jobs it createsIt is the niche with the most direct employment per dollar billed in the whole Catamarca portfolio, and it arrives first: earthmoving is the first job on the schedule — before the plant, before the liner, before production. La lectura completa para el que busca trabajo, en la hoja de este nicho para la gente →
calculate it
The number is our own estimate. The calculation, step by step, is below.
The full calculation, step by step
Concentration High per package, low by category, and with an asymmetry that defines the whole route in.In ponds: 2 of 2 documented packages to the same extra-provincial lead joint venture, with a single buyer (LIEX/Zijin).In plant civil works: one contractor per operator and every one of them from outside (at Fénix and at Sal de Vida) — there is no visible competition per package, there is award by track record and relationship.In the category as such, concentration is low: 31 construction companies and 12 rental firms in the provincial chamber's 2023 category map and 229 active suppliers in the Re.P.E.M. (May-2026), but with 75 of 194 concentrated in the capital and only 12 in Antofagasta de la Sierra, the department of the three Hombre Muerto projects: the supply exists where the work is not.The asymmetry: the concentration is not one of technical capability —a joint venture of three Catamarca companies is in charge of 60.3 km of earthworks and paving in the middle of the puna, with 15% progress as of February 2026, awarded in August 2024 prob El Ancasti, 31-Aug-2024— but of position in the contracting chain. The big packages are awarded to whoever has already done them, and the only open, documented door is the joint venture with a local partner (the same local partner, twice). Conclusion: the market is not unserved and the local supply is not incapable — it is displaced from the head of the contract.
The rule that moves it
This niche has two rules pushing it and one that decides its margin. Pushing: the local-content commitments written into acts of State: Hombre Muerto Oeste declares that 95.34% of what it pays suppliers goes to local suppliers —the highest percentage among the resolutions of Catamarca and of the zone shared with Salta— and Fénix 60%, three times the regime's minimum; and this category is the easiest to attribute against those commitments, because the labor, the equipment and the borrow material are in the province. The key to collecting from that amount is the Re.P.E.M., which requires two years of domicile, half the partners local and 70% of the payroll from Catamarca — and admits the joint venture with a local partner as a shortcut, with two proven precedents. And the margin is decided by Ley Impositiva 5.927: the same contract pays 2.5% of Turnover tax if it is classified as construction and up to 4.8% if it is classified as a mining support service, plus 1.5% Stamp tax on the contract (art. 26 subs. 2) — and the Turnover tax classification is chosen at registration, not at invoicing.
See the underlying reading
The underlying policy that opens up this demand. It is the same inference declared by the rules and the program pillars pushing in this direction.
the RIGI promise is keptSee the full legal grounds
Where the number comes from
the ponds alone give ~USD 21 M/year (1.94 × 8.5 plus 3.23 × 1.5) —with the price the audit set, not the starting assumption of 11—; adding the site civil works that are not pond (midpoint ~USD 20 M/year, almost half the niche) and operating maintenance (~USD 5 M/year), the midpoint reaches ~USD 45 M/year. The full band is USD 12-98 M/year depending on which stages get built and at what price. The hard variant —only what comes out of a published bill of quantities— is USD 5-63 M/year, midpoint ~USD 25 M
See the calculation, the variables and how it was validated
The TAM is built from four variables you can watch from outside: how many hectares of pond get built, how many cubic meters and square meters each hectare demands, how much each unit costs delivered to site and over how many years it is executed. Change one and the number is recalculated.
A robustness check by two independent routes. Top-down: Catamarca's portfolio under construction moves on the order of USD 1,500-2,400 M over the window, and earthmoving together with site civil works runs 12-20% of a lithium project's capex ⇒ USD 36-96 M/year, an interval our range contains with a more conservative floor. By pace: the only documented package did 200 hectares in 8 months including winter, so the midpoint equals ~1.5 packages running simultaneously — consistent with three or four open fronts and not with a single one. There is also a reading that can rarely be made: this niche and the geosynthetics one are the two halves of the same pond package, and it is worth looking at them together. It goes as context and not as a third confirmation, for method transparency: both rest on the same Sal de Vida capex line, so they back each other in a circle. The figure stands on the two routes above, which share no inputs.
The number rests on a few variables. The formula shows how it moves when each one changes; and each variable carries its freshness seal — how often it is worth revisiting. estim
This is the niche with the best-measured demand in the province, and not because we calculate it: the contractor itself publishes the bill of quantities —cubic meters of excavation, of berms and of floor, and square meters of crust breaking— for the two Tres Quebradas pond stages, and we reopened those sheets to confirm every number. What does not exist is a public price for earthmoving on a high-altitude mining project, so the USD per cubic meter is an explicit assumption and we cross-check it by three routes that share no inputs: the pond capex declared in Sal de Vida's technical report, a real puna road contract in the same province (Section I of Route 43, with a published official budget) and the productivity physics of a fleet at 4,100 meters. All three give the same band. The annual total is our own estimate and we say so.
Coverage: CAPPROMIN's category map, the provincial chamber of mining suppliers (19 categories and 123 memberships, as of 2023: 31 construction firms and 12 equipment rental firms, with the detail of what each one declares it rents out), and the CASEMICA & ER member list · Sep 14, 2026 · not reviewed: the Re.P.E.M., which is the mandatory provincial registry, publishes the total number of registrants and their breakdown by department but never the names; and the provincial government's supplier register (COMPR.AR Catamarca) is queried one at a time and cannot be listed from outside
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). Earthmoving and pond civil works in the Catamarca puna · Catamarca. despegueargentina.com/en/catamarca/movimiento-suelo-obra-civil-puna · terms of use
Neighbouring markets2 markets in the same group, from USD 2,5 to USD 27 M a year
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