Company: SQM
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000909037-25-000020
Chunk: 73

Company: CHEMICAL & MINING CO OF CHILE INC
Filing Date: 2025-04-24
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 73
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, where sodium chloride salts (halite) precipitate, are then harvested and removed. These salts have the potential to be used in the copper 
mining process. In the second stage of the evaporation process, the remaining brine from the first stage is transferred to other evaporation ponds where potassium chloride salts together with sodium chloride (sylvinite) precipitate. These salts are harvested and then sent for treatment at one of the wet potassium chloride plants where potassium chloride is separated by a grinding, flotation, and filtering process. In the final evaporation stage, salts containing magnesium are harvested and treated at one of the cold leach plants where magnesium is removed. Part of the potassium chloride is transported approximately 300 kilometers to our Coya Sur facilities via a dedicated truck transport system, where it is used in the production of potassium nitrate. The use of potassium chloride salts as a raw material in Coya Sur allows us to capture significant savings, as it allows us to use potassium salts with different qualities and to avoid buying and importing potassium chloride from external sources.
The remainder of the potassium chloride produced at the Salar de Atacama is shipped to our port in Tocopilla in either crystallized (standard) or granular (compacted) form and then shipped and sold as a commodity fertilizer to third parties. All of our potassium chloride-related plants in the Salar de Atacama currently have a nominal production capacity of up to 2.6 million metric tons per year. Actual production capacity depends on volume, quality and performance of the salts used in the process and quality of the brine resources pumped from the Salar de Atacama.
Mount Holland Spodumene Deposits
The Mount Holland project is an integrated lithium project in Western Australia consisting of (i) an open-pit mine on the Earl Grey hard rock lithium deposit and a spodumene concentrator comprised of Dense Media Separation ("DMS") and flotation circuits, 120 kilometers southeast of Southern Cross, and (ii) a lithium hydroxide (LiOH) refinery, located in the town of Kwinana, 26.5 kilometers from the Port of Fremantle, from which the battery-grade LiOH product will be shipped. The concentrator at the Mt. Holland site has a nominal production capacity of 383,000 dry metric tons per annum concentrate at a grade of 5.5 per cent lithium oxide matching the refinery feed requirements. The refinery in Kwinana has the capacity to produce 50,000 metric