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Comment by nordsieck | Hacker News Reader

> Future lithium contracts would only be issued as public-private partnerships with state control, he said.

> The government would not terminate current contracts, but hoped companies would be open to state participation before they expire, he said, without naming Albemarle and SQM, the world's No.1 and No.2 lithium producers respectively.

This is very different from what I was expecting with the word "nationalize". Unless they're seizing property that isn't mentioned in the article.

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Nationalisation doesn’t necessarily involve expropriation; it can, but it’s not the only or even most common form it takes.

From what I have read the state will own 51% of new mines and levy special taxes on the profits. They won't be offering any capital to build the mines or refineries though. It will be interesting to see if there are any takers.

The mineral reserves are already public property as prescribed by the Chilean Constitution:

> The State has absolute, exclusive, inalienable and imprescriptible domain over all mines, including guano deposits, metalliferous sands, salt mines, coal and hydrocarbon deposits and the other fossil substances, with the exception of superficial clays, despite the ownership held by individuals or body corporates over the land in which the above should be contained. The superficial landed property shall be subject to the obligations and limitations prescribed for by law to facilitate exploration, exploitation and development of said mines.

What changes is that new mining concession will no longer be granted without accepting a majority stake from the state in exchange for the right to mine those deposits. The profit split might be different though, allowing firms to recover the capital.

"SQM's contract is set to expire in 2030 and Albemarle's in 2043."

Worth noting!

badtake/This looks like the national electricity model in Quebec, where the public absorbs risk and the private part of the private-public partnership absorbs profits. Just the best!/badtake

Edit: looks like this is an outdated take - please diregard

Well, since these will mostly be foreign companies partnering with the government, I imagine that it'll be a little closer to the Chinese model, but maybe with a bit less IP theft.

What's the private part of the Quebec model?

Hydro quebec is the national energy "company", which is nationalised, but they give contracts to other companies to run parts of their operations - this happenes through multiple deals by one of our past prime minister. At this point, Hydro-Quebec is only directly responsible for a portion of the hydro we create, while it has let natural gas, wind turbines and possibly more to private companies.

Edit: refer to my other comments, this is a bad take, hydro is not privately owned

It's hard to research even for a french speaker though - I think I might reasearch and write something on it just to clarify my own opinions

Hydro quebec pays a yearly dividend to its sole shareholder, the government of Quebec. For 2022 : "In light of these results, Hydro-Québec will be able to pay a dividend of $3,418 million to the Québec government, its sole shareholder—the largest in its history."

Source : https://www.hydroquebec.com/data/documents-donnees/pdf/annua...

> This looks like the national electricity model in Quebec, where the public absorbs risk and the private part of the private-public partnership absorbs profits. Just the best!

I'm not super sure what you're referring to, Hydro Quebec's (often significant) profits are returned as dividends to the government. This year was $3.4 billion[0], and while I'm sure they have private contractors, but I can't imagine they're raking in anywhere near that.

0. https://globalnews.ca/news/9503363/hydro-quebec-record-finan...

I'll have to look into it - it seems a little odd that we keep raising electricity costs if we are racking in more profits than ever.

This is an old opinion that I haven't revisited in a couple years, thanks for the link

HQ sells it, basically, at-cost locally. The cost does go up, inflation and all that. The remainder that is exported above-cost is just profit for HQ, which is turned into further expansion and returns to the provincial budget. There are good economic reasons to not go further and start outright subsidizing the cost of electricity. it would just turn those export profits - which could be spent on anything - into things that use electricity locally, which is less general and exchangeable.

Thanks - just read a couple articles, and price increases at this time are because we are overproducing electricity until some contracts take effect with the US - I'm seeing that all the comments about it being a private-public partnership had to do with gas exploitation rights being sold to extranational companies.

The company is publicly owned - I was totally wrong and am very proud of HQ now!

Especially their work in battery research!

Sure, but under that logic why supply power locally at all? They can just export all the electricity and use that money on anything. If the citizens need heat, they can just burn wood.

To be fair to HQ most of the electricity is hydro so they are dependent on the hydrological cycle. Outsourcing those profits into a high quality economy (advanced manufacturing etc) with good jobs subsidized by cheap electricity actually has some merit to it.

However exporting those profits to neighboring states might not be as valuable unless they are looking for currency hedge + contracted power arrangements.

Future investors will be wary of the country - long run damage being done.

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