Company: SQM
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000909037-25-000020
Chunk: 69

Company: CHEMICAL & MINING CO OF CHILE INC
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 69
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 constraint to increasing iodine production is lack of water supply. With this additional capacity of iodide production, our total current effective production capacity at our iodine plants is approximately 16,000 metric tons per year (including our capacity at the Nueva Victoria and Pedro de Valdivia iodine plants).
Additionally, the seawater pipeline with a capacity of 900 liters per second is under construction and is expected to enter into operation by the end of 2026. 
We use a portion of the iodine we produce to manufacture inorganic iodine derivatives, which are intermediate products used for manufacturing agricultural and nutritional applications, at facilities located near Santiago, Chile. We also produce inorganic and organic iodine derivative products together with Ajay, which purchases iodine from us. In the past, we have primarily sold our iodine derivative products in South America, Africa and Asia, while Ajay and its affiliates have primarily sold their iodine derivative products in North America and Europe.
Salar de Atacama Brine Deposits
The Salar de Atacama, located approximately 210 kilometers east of Antofagasta, is a salt-encrusted depression in the Atacama Desert, within which lies an underground deposit of brines contained in porous sodium chloride rock fed by an underground inflow from the Andes mountains, which is the result of millions of years of climatic and tectonic impacts. Brines are pumped from depths of 15 to 150 meters below the surface, through a field of wells that are located in the Salar de Atacama, distributed in areas authorized for exploitation, and which contain relatively high concentrations of potassium, lithium, sulfates and other minerals.
The brines are estimated to cover a surface of approximately 2,800 square kilometers and contain commercially exploitable deposits of potassium, lithium, sulfates and boron. Concentrations vary at different locations throughout the Salar de Atacama. Our mining exploitation rights to the Salar de Atacama are pursuant to the SQM-Corfo Agreements, which expire in 2030. The SQM-Corfo Agreements, as amended in January 2018, establish a total production and sales limit of up to 349,553 metric tons of lithium metallic equivalent (1,860,671 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent), which is in addition to the approximately 64,816 metric tons of lithium metallic equivalent (345,015 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent) then remaining from the originally authorized amount. See “