Lithium 2025: When the Numbers Reveal the Truth

Pablo Rutigliano presents a critical analysis of Argentine lithium exports: under-invoicing, opacity, and the urgent need for transparency and fair prices

By Pablo Rutigliano – President of the Latin American Chamber of LithiumBuenos Aires, September 11, 2025.

Lithium is no longer a vague promise: it is the backbone of the global energy transition. Electric car batteries, storage systems, smart grids, satellites, and even medical devices depend on this mineral. Despite having one of the largest reserves on the planet, Argentina continues to lag behind, trapped in rhetoric that crumbles in the face of overwhelming official export statistics.

The numbers speak for themselves. Chile, led by state-owned SQM, has recorded 6,131 shipments worth $562 million FOB and 69,882 tons of lithium carbonate exported so far in 2025. Rockwood Lithium (Albemarle) follows with 2,079 operations, $313 million, and 41,040 tons. Argentina comes in third, through Sales de Jujuy, with just 171 operations, $157 million, and 24,000 tons. The difference is overwhelming: Chile exports more than double the tonnage and nineteen times the number of shipments made by our country. No official account can hide this evidence.

But the problem is not just one of volume. The Latin American Lithium Chamber has been warning for years about a structural problem: systematic under-invoicing. Companies such as Minería del Antiplano (Livent)—under investigation by Court No. 4—reported 140 transactions, US$149 million, and 15,993 tons, well below the international benchmarks set by Shanghai or the London Metal Exchange. Other firms, such as Minería Exar S.A. and Eramine Sudamericana S.A., follow the same pattern: million-dollar transactions declared at artificially low prices. Every dollar underreported is one less hospital, one less school, one less opportunity for development that vanishes into thin air.

The most outrageous thing is the passivity of the National Mining Secretariat. The reports it publishes on its website are mere communication exercises without any real plan to boost exports or increase competitiveness. There is no comprehensive investment census, no accurate map of projects, and no auditable statistics. While Chile designs clear public policies, Argentina limits itself to disseminating incomplete data that hides under-invoicing and protects the cartelization of the industry. This opacity discourages new investment, prevents the setting of reference prices, and deprives the country of its enormous potential.

This complicity extends to industry forums. At the lithium conferences that are multiplying across the country, no one talks about the essentials. Neither price formation, nor export contracts, nor the urgency of declaring lithium a commodity. Empty slogans are repeated while the central question is avoided: who sets the price and by what rules? This deliberate omission consolidates a captive market and deepens the loss of economic sovereignty.

Argentina should be the price setter. With its reserves and production capacity, it can and must establish uniform and competitive values that reflect its real weight in the market. Allowing Shanghai or London to define the value of our lithium is tantamount to relinquishing sovereignty. Such a concession opens the door to under-invoicing and smuggling, evils with which we are already all too familiar.

The so-called "lithium triangle" has been revealed as a myth. Bolivia, through Yacimientos Litíferos Bolivianos, has only 19 operations totaling $17 million and 2,154 tons. Brazil, marginally, has three operations totaling $175,000 and three tons. Even Puna Mining, with Argentine capital, has no more than two operations, with US$500,000 and eight tons shipped to China. Regional integration is, today, an empty slogan. The real center of gravity is in Chile, which has made lithium a state policy.

Chile understood the challenge. It declared lithium a commodity, established stable rules, made every export contract transparent, and protected a strategic resource that is predictably integrated into the global economy. Argentina, on the other hand, remains trapped in a tangle of provincial interests, bureaucracy, and the influence of a mining caste that favors opaque agreements over national development. The result is stark: while Chile will exceed 110,000 tons exported in 2025, we will barely reach 63,000, less than 57% of our neighbors' operations.

Faced with this reality, transparency is not an option: it is an obligation. The country must declare lithium a commodity, set export prices in line with international values, and digitize all controls—including blockchain traceability—so that every ton is verifiable and every contract is public. Without that, we will remain irrelevant.

At this point, the National Securities Commission (CNV) exacerbates the problem. Its purported regulation of tokenization is a mess that copies and pastes capital market rules without understanding the essence of the technology. Instead of promoting genuine financing and transparent markets, it cartelizes the process and prevents blockchain from fulfilling its function. Tokenization was born to democratize investment, not to get caught up in old structures that benefit only a few.

This is not about ideology, but about economic survival. While we argue about whether mining is "national" or "provincial," the world moves forward. Every day lost consolidates our neighbors' advantage and relegates us to being mere suppliers of cheap raw materials.

Lithium is not just a resource: it is the key to redefining Argentina's production model. Chile understood this, Bolivia is moving forward, and we remain in doubt. The numbers don't lie. Chile exports more than twice as much lithium and nineteen times more than Argentina. The inaction of the Mining Secretariat, the silence of the forums, the lack of a real census, and the absence of pricing policies condemn us to irrelevance.

The official narrative has ended. It is time to decide whether we want to be protagonists of the 21st century or mere spectators. Transparency, planning, and determination to set prices are the only tools to regain sovereignty and transform our geological wealth into prosperity. Otherwise, we will continue to watch as others turn what remains here as an unfulfilled promise into fortunes.