Hombre Muerto Oeste (HMW) — lithium carbonate (Galan)

The project commits that 95.34% of what it earmarks for paying suppliers, goods and works goes to local suppliers, the highest share among the approved projects that disclose it, against a regime minimum of 20%, and has a minimum-investment deadline of 31 December 2029: it is supplier demand written into the resolution and with a clock running. Within that basket, energy is the link Catamarca does not have measured as a niche -San Juan does, for copper- and a carbonate plant in the puna needs firm capacity, back-up and fuel in a place with no robust grid. It is infrastructure decided before the first tonne is produced.

It is 12,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent that have to be moved out of the puna to port, in a product sensitive to moisture and cross-contamination, with packaging, intermediate storage and condition control at every stage. The province's niche map covers the last mile inbound -the reagents going up- but not the outbound flow, which is the one that invoices. No Catamarca niche quantifies it and the service is currently assembled by generalist hauliers with no specialisation in battery-grade chemical product.

The final buyer of the carbonate is not an indifferent commodity trader: it is an automotive chain that requires proof of origin, production conditions and footprint across the entire custody of the material, and that proof is produced with independent third-party audit and with documentation assembled from the first day of operation, not at the moment of sale. The province already has fiscal metering measured for the royalty, which is a different thing: that one measures for the State, this one certifies for the client. There is no local supplier and the parent company is listed on an exchange that also demands its own reporting.