High-altitude logistics and export dispatch via the Paso de Sico (Salta)
It is the third largest of this province's nine markets and the easiest to misread, because half of it already has an owner and is not contested: the diesel is moved by the distributor with its tanker, the borate is brought down by the same company over its own route and has been for 65 years, and the lithium product is dispatched by the operator's chain —Chinese, Korean, global— which does not buy in Salta. The other half has no visible owner, and there are three things there that almost nobody is looking at. The first: measured in tonnes per kilometre, the operation already moves more than the construction, so the niche does not switch off when construction ends in 2029 — it shrinks by a third. The second: of the seven registered companies identified with a focus on the corridor, none declares a dangerous goods transport license, which is precisely the permit that separates cheap freight from freight that pays. And the third is fiscal and is worth money every month: it is the only one of Salta's nine satellite services with a line in the tax schedule below the general rate.
The number is freight billings, not total mining spend: it is tonnes per kilometre at a tariff, measured over the high-altitude leg plus border clearance. It is built from four blocks that behave differently —two go up, one comes down and one crosses— and the usual reading error is to treat them as a single market. Two of the four already have an owner and are declared so the reader can subtract them.
This niche's driver is not a rule but a construction programme and a tonnage, so the three below do not create the market: they define who can charge for it, how much is left after tax and what happens if a provincial boundary moves. The ones below open in the reforms panel on the home page, with their status and primary source.
enablesSalta: 70/60 local mining procurementIt is the one that defines who counts as a local supplier —actual and tax address in the province, 80% of the payroll here, 51% of the capital— and the one that leaves the door open for the outsider: a joint venture with a Salta partner from 30%, and in logistics that structure is already proven at the salt flat works. But it is worth reading the section carefully before building a business plan on top of it: it says they shall preferably contract and it sets no penalties. It is preference with a reward —the operator can offset up to half the quarterly royalty against works—, not a captive market. And the local content commitments in the resolutions are over the investment amount, not quotas by category: they can be met by buying earthworks and civil works, which is where the volume is.see the reform →enablesSalta cuts the rate 20% for retail and hospitality, and exempts newly registered taxpayers for 12 monthsIt is the one that funds year one and it has an expiry date: a new taxpayer that registers voluntarily pays a zero rate for up to twelve months, and the benefit lapses at the end of 2026 unless extended. In this niche it matters more than in any other because of what happens afterwards: here the activity can be classified under two different lines of the tax schedule with almost double the difference between one and the other, and it is the only Salta satellite service with a door below the general rate. Whoever invoices everything together without separating the classification gives away more than a point and a half of gross billing, every month.see the reform →touchesSalta ratified first, and its Gazette publishes the annex that Catamarca’s does not: the 50/50 split is there in writingIt does not create freight demand, but it can take a piece of it: the agreement orders the area Salta shares with Catamarca, where the brine field of one of the three projects in the number sits. Watch clause nine: the agreement lapses when Congress settles the boundary between the two provinces. For this niche the effect is indirect but real —which side the field ends up on defines which supplier roll applies and who the operator buys from— and in its favour the protocols are declared a reference base for future projects in the area, so the regime outlives the project.see the reform →This market does not float on its own: concrete megaprojects drive it. These are the ones moving demand for this niche — each with its investment and status.
The largest RIGI commitment in Argentine lithium: Rio Tinto is building a 53,000 tpa plant at the Salar de Rincón using DLE (nanofiltration)…
see the project →Gold and silver mining in the puna, on the Salta/Catamarca border area: feasibility development, a 3.15 Mt/yr processing plant and full infrastructure…
see the project →Second stage of POSCO’s Sal de Oro lithium complex in the Salar del Hombre Muerto, on the disputed Salta/Catamarca border strip: it adds a 23,000…
see the project →Who splits the market, where you get in, what pays and what could break it.
already in
split
Salta's first mining transport and integrated logistics cooperative, based in San Antonio de los Cobres, launched on 8-Sep-2025 verif official note from the Province. It is the incumbent to beat and at the same time the natural partner for a joint venture: it has the local roots that Act 8164 rewards (60% local payroll) and it does NOT have, as far as is public, a declared dangerous goods transport license - which is exactly where the margin sits.
It brings borate down from Tincalayu (4,100 m above sea level, 370 km from Campo Quijano) and Sijes (3,870 m above sea level, 320 km) to its boric acid, fusion and dispatch plant in Campo Quijano, and it has been doing so for 65+ years. The tonnage is our own estimate derived from two verified lines (148,968 t of 2025 mining exports minus lithium and gold); the elevations and distances are verified. Structural captive: nobody displaces 65 years of a proprietary route. It is also the proof that the anchor client of Salta's high-altitude freight is NOT lithium.
The dangerous goods license and the tanker belong to the distributor, not to the miner. It is a de facto captive, and it is the segment where the 492250 classification at 2.00% is already in use. Price reference: bulk diesel at the mine site USD 0.95/litre verif Diablillos NI 43-101 against ~USD 1.54/l at the pump prob posted retail price - a -38% gap that a supplier quoting against the pump price ignores.
Earthworks, ponds, geomembrane and logistics. Local partner OF MILICIC (Santa Fe) AT RINCÓN: it is exactly the joint venture structure that section 16 of Act 8164 admits (Salta partner at 30%) for the company coming from outside. Not a minor detail: its general manager, Diego Pestana, is the head of CAPEMISA who stated the USD 3,000 per semi-trailer that anchors this TAM's tariff.
Sodium carbonate comes in from Chile as far as Salar de Pocitos, lithium carbonate goes out from Pocitos to Socompa. The World Bank projects 1.3 Mt by 2045 with works completed. Declared saving ~USD 10/t (~-35%) vs truck unconf there is no published rail tariff in USD/t. It is being CONCESSIONED FOR 50 years (interested parties: Bunge+Cargill+ACA+AGD+Louis Dreyfus, Grupo Roggio; Ferromex withdrew in Apr-2026). Whoever wins decides whether Salta's lithium travels by rail.
First rail convoy of hydrochloric acid from the Grupo Bueras station (Pilar, Buenos Aires) to the General Güemes logistics hub via Belgrano Cargas, on 3-Jul-2026, presented as the start of a recurring logistics model and not a one-off operation prob. Volume not disclosed and mining client not publicly identified. It is the year's most concrete signal in this niche: the train brings the bulk down to Güemes and the last mile up to 4,000 m still has no owner.
6,000 t/month = 72,000 t/year of calcium oxide, investment ~USD 10 M, environmental impact study approved prob. The founder's explicit rationale: today Salta, Jujuy and Catamarca bring lime from San Juan and 'the freight costs more than the product'. If the plant starts up within the window, the lime tonnage stops travelling the long route; how much t-km that substitution takes away is measured in the niche's killer.
The first carbonate shipment from Centenario-Ratones left through ROSARIO, 1,580 km, under the operator's own arrangement; Mariana exports LiCl to China with its own forwarding. Documented precedent one province away: CAPPROMIN denounced in Feb-2026 that POSCO brings in Korean suppliers and turns them into service companies once construction ends. Forwarding travels with the owner of the cargo.
Alfrecar claims +30 years specializing in Puna roads unconf; GVH recruits fire crews and drivers prob; the other four are unconfirmed. It is the proof that the addressable layer exists but has neither scale nor declared certification - the gap is not one of existence, it is one of licensing and of fleet.
OTR tyres, on-site technical support, fleet monitoring, pressure and wear control, with a declared focus on northern Argentine lithium prob. Proof that the heavy fleet support ecosystem already exists in Salta - a new entrant does not have to import the after-sales service.
The paved trunk route leaves no local edge — there is a tariff index and mature competition — and you do not fight head-on for the route of whoever has held it for 65 years. What opens this corridor is not a bigger fleet: it is a permit, the dangerous-goods one, held by very few, and it is step 2. If you already own trucks, your segment is step 1 — subcontracting for an already-permitted carrier or for the works contractor, with no homologation of your own — and from there step 2. You get in through the permitted last mile, and it is worth doing it in this order:
Subcontracted freight for an already licensed carrier or for the construction contractor — no homologation of your own, first invoice in three to six months. It is the door that funds year one: the client is not the mine but another carrier or the builder, so you do not have to pass the operator's supplier register or wait for any tender to open.
The dangerous goods license, and classifying the freight under its own line — it is the play of this business and it is fiscal and operational at once. That license is held by very few in the whole province. It is worth 1.6 points of turnover tax on gross billing compared with invoicing as a generic mining service, which on three million dollars a year is some forty-eight thousand dollars —between 13 and 20% of the net result—. The barrier is paperwork, homologated tankers and a current driver's course: it is not scale capital.
Assemble the pair that goes up and comes down — zero capital and pure coordination. The corridor is nearly balanced in tonnage and the uphill trucks come back empty, which is exactly what makes the high-altitude tariff of the order of three times a flatland trunk rate. Nobody has to be convinced: two contracts that today sit apart have to be brought together.
Reagent warehouse and last mile from General Güemes — the rail node has just been inaugurated and the province's two lithium chemical plants are in that industrial park, on a national route and 900 metres above sea level. The train brings the bulk that far; the last four thousand metres of altitude are still a truck, and that leg has no owner today.
Clearance, agency and bonded warehousing at the pass to Chile — the 24-36 month bet, with a regulatory barrier and not a capital one. Integrated control has been fully operational since June 2026 and the pass reopened to freight in July. But it has somebody else's clock running, and that is in the box below.
Truck-to-rail transfer at Pocitos and Olacapato — the door that resolves the paradox this same page poses. If the C-14, concessioned for 50 years, takes the long-distance bulk, the business is not to compete with the train: it is to load it. Carbonate consolidation for rail (big bags, moisture control), a transfer yard and the last mile from the station. REMSa's Mining Logistics Node —403 hectares in Olacapato Chico, 62 km from the Paso de Sico, with an exclusive C-14 rail station and a transfer yard— is going to need exactly that operated, and it is the same thing Puerto Angamos set up in Mejillones in May 2026 on the Chilean side. It is the most geographically concrete datum in the niche: there is no guessing where.
~USD 16-20 M/year (45-55% of the midpoint TAM): the fuel (~USD 4-6 M/year), moved by the distributor with its tanker and its license; the borate (~USD 5-8 M/year), over Borax Argentina's own 65-year route from Tincalayu and Sijes to Campo Quijano; the dispatch of lithium product, contracted within the operator's chain (Chinese Ganfeng, Korean POSCO, global Rio Tinto, Eramet which already sent its first shipment out through Rosario under its own arrangement); and the logistics that the construction contractor brings inside the works price - the template is Milicic + AGV Servicios Mineros at Rincón, where the freight travels inside the contract and not separately.
~USD 15-20 M/year (40-50% of the midpoint TAM) addressable by a local or national entrant: freight of bulk and bagged reagents (soda ash, lime while it lasts, HCl, plant inputs), construction input freight of ring A not captured by the contractor, product downhaul with the return trip used, personnel transport on 14x14 and 15x15 rosters (there are 3,600 contractors at the peak of Sal de Oro CP2 and a kitchen and canteen for >2,000 people per day at Rincón's camp, both verified in primary sources), and consolidation and clearance at Sico / the Olacapato Logistics Node. It is equivalent to ~55-75 heavy trucks and on the order of 200-300 direct jobs across the whole province and among all bidders combined estim. BEWARE THE 70%/60% OF ACT 8164 AND THE 21.02% OF SAL DE ORO II: they widen the door and they are real, auditable sales arguments -the 21.02% is in the text of Res. 1157/2026, against the 20% floor of section 47 subsection l of the annex to decree 749/2024- but they are commitments over the investment amount, not quotas by category. The operator can meet the 21.02% by buying earthworks, catering and civil works, which is where the volume is. And section 17 of Act 8164 says they 'shall preferably contract' WITH no penalties: it is preference with a reward (offsetting up to 50% of the quarterly royalty against works, section 19 + Chapter II), not a captive market.
USD 1.5-4 M/year for ONE entrant over 2-3 years = 8-20 heavy trucks + a dangerous goods license + registration in the RPPLEM. At CAPEMISA's anchor tariff (~USD 3,000 per load to the Puna), USD 2.5 M/year is ~830 loads a year = ~3.3 per working day, plausible for an SME with 10-12 rigs. Realistic composition: YEAR 1, subcontracted reagent freight for an already licensed carrier or for the construction contractor at Rincón/Diablillos (no homologation of your own, invoicing within 3-6 months); YEAR 1-2, a dangerous goods framework contract under the 492250 classification with one of the four lithium operators - the leg that gives margin and the one almost nobody has; YEAR 2-3, personnel transport (an annual, index-linked contract with the operating life of the mine) plus a product downhaul package that assembles the up-and-down pair. It is an SME, it is profitable, and unlike construction it does NOT switch off in 2029.
When you get paid, and what blocks it
effect
It is the dual-audience niche with the shortest entry route in the whole Salta mining chain, and both things have to be said: they are hundreds of jobs, not thousands, and they are jobs you get with a licence, not with a degree.How many jobs, without inflating: the full SAM (USD 15-20 M/year) is equivalent to ~55-75 heavy trucks and on the order of 200-300 direct jobs across the whole province and among all bidders combined; a single entrant's wedge, 20-45 jobs. The whole corridor -including the captive layer- supports 130-150 heavy rigs estim our own, cross-checked against the 180 vehicles declared by Cooperativa De La Puna.Trades with a concrete route, both bands: long-distance and high-altitude driver with a national licence plus a dangerous goods transport course - it is the entry job of the segment, it takes weeks or months, it requires no degree, and the 20% zone allowance of CCT 38/89 pays it above the collective agreement; heavy fleet and high-altitude engine mechanic (derating, filters, turbo, cooling), the scarcest trade in the corridor because there is no documented intermediate workshop over 143 km of gravel; otr and road tyre fitter, with a local base that already exists (Larocca Salta Neumáticos, official Bridgestone dealer, provides on-site technical support, fleet monitoring and pressure and wear control); forklift, crane and transfer yard operator (Güemes, Pocitos, Olacapato Chico); warehouse and depot staff licensed for chemicals. And the degree band: customs broker (licensed), customs transport agent, logistics operations analyst, logistics engineer or health and safety engineer specializing in hazardous freight.Local linkage, with a proven case: Cooperativa De La Puna -17 members, 180 vehicles, based in San Antonio de los Cobres- is the proof that the business is built from the corridor's own town and not from the capital. It is the model to replicate in Olacapato, Salar de Pocitos and Tolar Grande, and it fits exactly the 60% local payroll that Act 8164 rewards.Training with funding already assigned: 5% of the mining royalty is legally earmarked for 'promotion and training' (Act 8229 section 25.b), extendable to 10% by the Budget Act. There is a public funding source with a legally tied purpose to train hazardous freight drivers and high-altitude mechanics - the financing does not have to be invented, it has to be used.What is not resolved, said head-on: they are hundreds of jobs, not thousands, and whoever sells this niche as a mass job creator is lying. The peak employment SWITCHES OFF IN 2029 and the legal deadlines of the three resolutions say so; what remains is the operating core, smaller and with fewer people. The lime freight will EXTINGUISH ITSELF when the Olacapato plant starts up: 31,000-52,000 t/year that today travel 1,880 km will travel 40. The train can eat the business - the C-14 is being concessioned for 50 years and Taca Taca, the volume that would change the scale, is planned by rail and not by truck. There is no medical fitness standard above 3,500 m above sea level: the driver works at 4,000 m with no national standard protecting them or defining what can be demanded of them. The pass runs 09:00-19:00 and there are 143 km of gravel; the tender for the 91 km was expected by mid-2026 with works in Aug/Sep-2026 and it could not be verified as awarded. The tax authority eats the margin if the classification fails: 3.60% with no permanent exemption against the 0.75% -or 0% with a certificate- paid by whoever extracts: 4.8 times the mine's rate. And nobody publishes payment terms: in a business where diesel is paid in cash and wages are monthly, financing 60-120 days of collection is the real risk. None of this invalidates the niche: it sizes it.
calculate it
Concentration Two layers with opposite concentrations, and neither measurable with public data. A methodological warning, and it applies to the whole map: there is no public market share data for any carrier in the Salta Puna - there is no tariff schedule, no fleet roll by company, no official statistic of crossings through Sico. The shares are a declared qualitative reading, not a measurement.Captive layer (~50% of the tonnage): high de facto concentration, with an effective HHI tending to 1 BY FLOW. The diesel is moved by the distributor with its tanker and its license; the borate is moved by Borax over its own 65-year route Tincalayu/Sijes -> Campo Quijano; the lithium product is dispatched by the operator's forwarding (Ganfeng with a Chinese chain, POSCO with Korean suppliers, Rio Tinto global, Eramet which already sent its first shipment out through Rosario). They are three flows with ONE single decision-maker each.Addressable layer: fragmented and hollow. Seven registered companies identified with a Puna focus, of which ONE ALONE has a public fleet (Cooperativa De La Puna, 180 vehicles) and none has a declared dangerous goods transport license. The RPPLEM roll has 498 suppliers for the whole of Salta mining and the UIA/CAEM/BID survey found 18 of 91 categories with no local offer. The final share is NOT decided by the incumbents: it is decided by two things beyond them - whether the operator brings forwarding in-house, and whether the C-14 line scales with its 50-year concession.
'The mining company' is the hardest and the latest door, and in this niche you do not need to knock on it to invoice. There are four clients with four budgets and four selling timelines, and only the third is the operator:
It is the first invoice and the fastest —three to six months— because the client is not the mine: it is whoever already has the contract and does not have enough rigs. The layer that can be subcontracted is identified and fragmented: seven registered companies with a declared focus on the corridor, of which only one has a public fleet —a cooperative of 17 members and 180 vehicles based in the corridor's own town, which is also the proof that the business is built from there and not from the capital—.
Here the buyer is not the operator but the builder, and that has a concrete advantage: it does not require passing the mining company's supplier register. The template is already proven in the province —a builder from another province partnered with a Salta company for the salt flat works— and it is exactly the joint venture structure that the local content act admits in its section 16. It is the door that closes in 2029, with the date written into the resolutions.
The highest-margin door and the one almost nobody can touch, because it requires the license none of the seven declares. Two different things are sold here: bulk reagent —which is consumed even if the plant runs at half capacity— and personnel transport on fourteen-by-fourteen rosters, which is the dullest and the most stable contract, annual, index-linked and with the operating life of the mine. The peak of a single construction project declared 3,600 contractors in the provincial Senate minutes.
It is the slowest and most uncertain door, and it does not depend on winning a client but on somebody else's works being built: the 91 kilometres of gravel still to be paved. Neither of those two things is under the control of whoever invests here, and there is a competitor that has already moved: Chile finished paving its section and even so decided to strengthen the other pass. It is declared as a bet and not as a market.
It is not 'what breaks it': it is the dashboard for sizing the fleet at the right moment. In this niche the expensive mistake is not entering late, it is buying too many trucks — and the warning arrives through public statistics, with nobody's permission needed.
It is the only number in the niche with an official series, and every tonne exported is freight billings before it is dollars: borate is 90% of that mass and only 12.8% of its value, so a report that reads exports in dollars is reading the wrong market for this business. You watch the mass, not the amount. And you watch the composition: if lithium's share rises against borate, the flow shifts from long-distance gravel to chemical bulk, which is another tariff, another rig and another license.
Salta's General Directorate of Statistics — mining report, and the export track of the national statistics agency, published periodically ↗Three companion signals, and all three are somebody else's decisions with a date. The tender for the 91 kilometres of gravel still missing up to the border: it was expected by mid-2026 and could not be verified as awarded — if it comes late, the flow consolidates through Jama, in Jujuy, and the clearance block does not exist. The lime plant being built in the corridor, with 72 thousand tonnes a year of calcium oxide and an approved environmental study: when it starts up, a third of the tonnage that today travels 1,880 kilometres uphill will travel 40, and that freight extinguishes itself. And the 50-year concession of the rail line: today it moves a minimal fraction of its installed capacity, but if it scales it takes the long-distance bulk — it does not compete with the high-altitude truck, it replaces it downstream.
Today it plays in favour: battery-grade carbonate at ~USD 23,100/t CIF Asia for 2H-2026 and +142% year-on-year in 1H verif Eramet. But the case that shows the risk is already inside the province: the Rincón Lithium plant (Argosy / Puna Mining) was recorded as suspended as of the Aug-2026 cut-off, against the backdrop of a roughly 80% fall in the price prob own survey of the province's plants; there is no operator statement or administrative act backing it. A parked truck does not bill, and freight is the first line an operator renegotiates when the price gives way.
For Taca Taca (USD 5,250 M) there is no public evidence that it has filed its application to the large-investment incentive regime —the title holder stated in Feb-2026 that it was preparing to file, and the official portal does not publish the detail of the projects under review, so non-filing cannot be verified there unconf status of the filing - it is ring C and is NOT in this TAM. Pozuelos-Pastos Grandes (~USD 3,000 M) filed on 28-Feb-2026 and was still without a published resolution as of the Aug-2026 cutoff prob industry press: if it goes through, the market (a) rises ~70%; if it does not, the published figure is the ceiling. And the RIGI art. 168 window expires on 8-Jul-2027, with a single extension: there is ~USD 8,600 M of announced capex in Salta without RIGI estim our own sum of the announcements with no application filed running against that date.
The C-14 moves ~1,500 t/month today against 120,000 t/year of capacity, with a World Bank projection of 1.3 Mt by 2045 and a declared saving of ~USD 10/t (~-35%) vs truck unconf there is no published rail tariff. It is being concessioned for 50 years. And TACA TACA HAS ALREADY WRITTEN ITS EXIT BY rail: a new 5 km spur to the C-14 towards Mejillones, with 813-1,132 kt/year of copper concentrate at 25.7% verif NI 43-101 eff. 31-Dec-2025. The volume that would make this niche explode is precisely the one planned NOT to go by truck.
Grupo Nioi is building a 72,000 t/year CaO lime plant at cerro Rincón with a plant in Olacapato/San Antonio de los Cobres, USD 10 M, environmental impact study approved. Explicit rationale: today lime comes from San Juan and 'the freight costs more than the product'. When it starts up, a flow of 31,000-52,000 t/year that today travels ~1,880 km will travel ~40 km: -25 to -35% of the uphill t-km. It is substitution of freight by local production, it is good news for the province and bad for the carrier, and it is the MOST measurable killer in the niche.
The same mechanism as the lime plant on a different line item: replacing cargo that goes up with infrastructure that already arrives. There are 321 km of 6-inch gas pipeline at 98-100 bar reaching Pocitos, Olacapato, Tolar Grande and Hombre Muerto prob the project's shared base, and Sal de Oro states it is migrating from diesel to natural gas plus photovoltaic prob provincial press. The fuel going up is 25,000-50,000 t/year estim our own and it was already being eroded from the other side: Mariana runs 100% off-grid solar and consumes none, and Lindero declares 40% less diesel since it built its hybrid prob trade press. For the carrier it is the same blow as the lime plant but slower and less visible — they are not taking away a client, they are taking away a product.
Ganfeng operates with a Chinese supply chain and exports LiCl to China with its own forwarding; Rio Tinto contracts globally; Eramet shipped its first cargo out of Centenario through Rosario, 1,580 km, under its own arrangement. That is already happening. On POSCO the data point is from another jurisdiction and it is a complaint, not a fact verified in Salta: the suppliers' chamber CAPPROMIN filed it in Catamarca in Feb-2026, against the same operator prob sector press. Forwarding travels with the owner of the cargo.
Market (a) switches off with the legal deadlines: Rincón 30-Jun-2029 (Res. 735/2025) and Sal de Oro II 31-Jul-2029 (Res. 1157/2026 section 3). What remains is market (b): USD 19-33 M/year PERPETUALLY of reagents going up and product coming down. Whoever sizes the fleet for the peak ends up with trucks to spare in 2030; whoever secures the operating contract keeps the client.
Chile finished paving its 38 km of the Socaire-Paso de Sico stretch AND EVEN SO decided to boost Jama prob industry press, and that same press attributes the choice to the lack of progress on the Argentine side prob attribution by the industry press; we did not check it against an act of either State. The corridor risk is NOT that the road never gets built: it is that it gets built late and the flow is already captured by Jujuy, with the Nodo Logístico de Olacapato left disconnected from the real flow.
Ten hours of window for a crossing at ~4,079 m above sea level prob limits it to one crossing a day and kills the turnaround. A pass that does not run 24/7 does not sustain the '300 to 500 trucks a day' the press projects - and our own arithmetic says the whole freight flow of the Salta Puna is 40-60 loads/day, 6-12x less than that projection.
The precedent is one province away: in Jun-2026 CAPROMITI (Tinogasta) reported that Zijin-Liex had hired a trucking company from Córdoba and threatened road blockades in Fiambalá, with the Cámara de Transporte de Catamarca joining in prob Catamarca provincial press; it is the chamber's complaint and a threat, not an executed blockade. In Salta the equivalent is the RPPLEM + Ley 8164, and the president of CAPEMISA said that the local-content percentages 'are not met in full' prob statement to the industry press. A blockade on RN 51 or on RP 27 halts works, certifications and collections at the same time.
492250 (transport of goods and hazardous substances) 2.00% against 99000 (mining support services) 3.60% WITH no exemption possible, and against the 0.75% -0% with the certificate of section 174 of the Tax Code- paid by whoever extracts verif by two independent routes: DGR General Resolution 16/2022 and the updated text of Act 6611 opened in Salta's Official Gazette. The 1.6 pp play in your favour only if the classification holds: whoever sells 'integrated logistics', in-plant storage or internal handling falls back to 3.60%. In a business with a high-single-digit net margin, 1.6 pp of gross billing is a double-digit slice of the result. What could move where the tax is paid: section 9 of the Multilateral Agreement for interjurisdictional transport was NOT opened in a primary source.
It was not calculated as a percentage of capex, which is the shortcut that inflates these numbers: tonnes per kilometre were counted and multiplied by a tariff. That is why the result can be argued input by input, and why the recurring part survives the end of construction. Only the three projects with a firm resolution and legal deadline are included; the two awaiting a resolution are declared and left out of the number.
A robustness check along three paths, all aimed at the same place: the high-altitude leg tariff, which is —in the page's own words— the dominant input and the weakest. The tonnage does not need it: it comes off an official export series. The price does. (a) Top-down from a published tariff, and this is the strong path because the universe is public and dated. In March 2026 FADEEAC published two points of its reference tariff that this project already had on file for other niches: 150 km at ARS 32,550/t and 1,400 km at ARS 140,612/t. Two points are enough for what is needed, which is the degressivity —a long haul is not quoted by adding legs—: the curve through them yields an exponent of −0.345 and, brought down to the 380 km of the puna leg, USD 0.105 per tonne-kilometre on paved road. Applying the asphalt-to-gravel step measured by the mining suppliers' chamber (×1.4 to ×2.0), that becomes USD 0.146-0.209. The page publishes 0.23-0.28, already narrowed by the audit on the corrected distance (it previously said 0.22-0.36): both sit above the top-down ceiling, and that is where it gets interesting, because the excess is measurable and has a name. A reference tariff assumes the truck is loaded both ways; here the one that goes up comes back empty. If the return leg is not used at all, cost per loaded kilometre doubles and the band would go to 0.29-0.42. The tariff in force sits in between, implying return-leg utilisation of 40 to 68% — against the 50-60% the page declares, internally and as its own assumption, for the downhill tariff. An internal assumption ends up confirmed by a calculation that never used it, and that is as close to a verification as this gets. (b) The twin at the salt flat next door. Catamarca quotes its last mile to the puna at USD 30-65 per tonne over 145 km of gravel, that is 0.276 USD/t-km at the midpoint. Carried to the 380 km here with the same degressivity curve, it gives 0.198: Salta's tariff in force sits 29% above. The gap has two mechanical explanations and neither is an error — the borates come down from 4,100 and 3,870 metres against the lower elevation of the Catamarca corridor, and that corridor's return leg is better solved. But it is not an independent path and that has to be said: it uses the same FADEEAC curve as path (a) and the same gravel step. It proves consistency between provinces, not the level. (c) Internal consistency, the check nobody runs and that is needed here. The physical Salta-to-salt-flat leg is priced twice inside the same dataset: here at 0.23-0.28 USD/t-km, and in the reagents niche as a last mile at USD 60-110 per tonne, which over the same 380 km is 0.158-0.289. They overlap almost entirely and the midpoint here sits 14% higher. This matters more than it looks: the two TAMs are added together in the provincial total, so if they contradicted each other the province's aggregate would be wrong by construction. They do not. Nor is this an independent path — both descend from the same suppliers' chamber anchor. What still stands: the tariff level holds, and for a concrete reason — the only way to reconcile it with a published tariff is the empty return leg, and the utilisation one has to assume to close the arithmetic is the same one the page already declared. What none of the three paths touches is the audit's second finding, still open and larger: the 380 km of puna were applied to all the freight, including two chemical plants that sit in General Güemes and not in the puna. That is USD 5-7 M/year at stake and the sign is unresolved, because working the other way is the brine leg that comes down off the salt flat and was never counted. It is declared and not netted out.
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
Every figure is checked against its source before we publish it. Here we show what backs it — and where the verified data ends and our estimate begins.
The tonnage that comes down is not an assumption: it comes from the province's mining exports, 148,968 tonnes in 2025, and from there gold is subtracted —it is 59.1% of the value and almost none of the mass, because it leaves as doré— and lithium too, leaving borate, which is 90% of the mass coming down and only 12.8% of its value. The fiscal asymmetry was verified through two independent routes and it is the hardest datum on the page: transport of goods and hazardous substances pays 2.00% turnover tax, and mining support services pay almost double *with no permanent exemption*, while whoever extracts pays 0.75% —or zero with a certificate—. The tax schedule of the provincial revenue office and the updated text of the tax act in the Official Gazette were both read. Three things are estimated and can be subtracted. The tariff is the most fragile of all and moves the result 1.2 times between floor and ceiling: the anchor is a 2023 statement by the mining suppliers' chamber —three thousand dollars per semi-trailer to the salt flat— and the distance it applied over was mismeasured: it is about 420 kilometres and not 300, and that difference alone inflated the ceiling by almost a third — the band published is the one corrected over the 420 kilometres. The tonnage going up has declared consumption ratios but no source: how much soda ash and how much lime each tonne of lithium consumes is our own assumption, and that is 44% of what goes up. And there is a tension that is declared instead of covered up: national sodium carbonate consumption by Argentine lithium is reported at 67,580 tonnes a year, and Salta alone at this scale would be more than half the country —the national figure predates the Salta start-up, and the conflict is left in plain sight—. For clearance through the border pass there is no official statistic of crossings, so that block is the smallest and the most assumed of the four.
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). High-altitude logistics and export dispatch via the Paso de Sico (Salta) · Salta. despegueargentina.com/en/salta/transporte-carga-altura-paso-sico · terms of use
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