What the projects in Salta are going to buy

It closed its feasibility study in June 2026 and has RIGI approval: what it buys now is construction work —a 3.15 Mt/yr plant plus infrastructure— between 2026 and 2029, and only in 2029 does it move on to buying operating supplies. An operations supplier knocking today arrives three years too early.

It is a Canadian junior with no cash of its own for USD 764 M: what decides whether Diablillos gets built inside the stated window is not the grade of the deposit but the cost at which it raises capital, and that moves with country risk as much as with the silver price.

Centenario-Ratones is already delivering product: it is the first plant in the world to take direct lithium extraction to industrial scale. An asset like that buys reagents, spares, plant services and process control every month, and that demand does not depend on any new stage being approved.

Eramet took 100% on October 24, 2024, buying from its partner the 49.9% it was missing. A consolidation like that is decided on the certainty of being able to collect the return abroad: it is the regime's promise turned into a capital decision.

It is the only metal mine in production in Salta, and therefore the only door in the province that already buys operating services at metal-mining scale every month. There is no need to wait for any construction: the market is open now and it is replacement demand, not construction demand.

It operates in the Arizaro salar, some 50 km from Tolar Grande: a puna village with nothing to absorb the spending of a mining workforce. Accommodation, food, personnel transport and services are demanded there, and they are the first entry step for someone without industrial capacity.

Mariana is the only project in the Salta perimeter whose product is lithium chloride rather than carbonate or hydroxide, and that changes its downstream chain: different logistics, different packaging and a different customer. The demand the asset leaves in operation is not generic lithium demand: it is specific to that product.

It has two assets in operation rather than one: the carbonate plant at the salar and the hydroxide plant inaugurated at General Güemes. That leaves recurring demand at both points and, above all, permanent logistics between them, which is the most accessible market for a Salta supplier.

Construction of the 23,000 t/yr plant ran between July 2024 and July 2026: the phase that bought assembly work has already closed. A construction proposal arrives late and a recurring supply proposal arrives on time.

Two overlapping stages: the 25,000 t/yr plant between July 2024 and December 2027, and Rincón Full Potential up to 53,000 t/yr between 2026 and 2029. Through 2026 and 2027 it buys construction work from both at once, which is the densest window in Salta lithium.

The deadline to certify the minimum investment is Jun 30, 2029, and it falls before full capacity is operating: buying for the second stage is ordered against that date in the resolution, not against progress on the first.

Its window is earthworks and geosynthetics, which opens at the start of construction and closes before commissioning. That is why it shows up at the same step in two different projects and two provinces: it does not sell a product, it sells a phase.

Who it competes against is defined by provincial law, not by the market: Salta and San Juan set the miner a purchasing floor for companies based in the province, and a local SME that partners up or registers competes for that quota with an advantage Milicic cannot match without moving its head office.

It occupies the earliest step of all: it comes in before any construction contractor and its work ends when the investment decision is taken. For a supplier, that means the list of what the project is going to buy exists —and can be read— long before there is any tender.

That the engineering is run from an Argentine office and that the firm posts vacancies on Salta's official job board are two signals of the same fact: the project's high technical layer is being contracted in the country, which is exactly where there used to be no demand for it.