Every grid-scale battery storage project and electric vehicle covered in the clean energy press runs on lithium-ion cells, and a large share of the world’s lithium comes from two countries locked in an increasingly public rivalry: Chile and Argentina. How that rivalry plays out — in courtrooms, in permitting offices, and in ministerial meetings — is upstream of nearly every battery deal in Europe and North America, even when neither Chile nor Argentina appears anywhere in the press release.
That upstream risk is currently playing out as active litigation in Chile. On 28 January 2026, Chile’s Supreme Court rejected a final appeal from Chinese lithium producer Tianqi against the merger of Codelco and SQM’s Atacama lithium operations, clearing the way for NovaAndino Litio — a Codelco-majority joint venture now controlling lithium development in the Salar de Atacama through 2060, with a potential output of around 330,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent a year, roughly 65% above current levels. That’s the raw material battery and EV manufacturers price their supply contracts against; a different outcome in that case could have meant years of uncertainty over who controls the largest lithium resource in Chile, the world’s second-largest producer.
A second, unresolved dispute shows how quickly that kind of uncertainty can resurface. French miner Eramet and Chilean state company ENAMI are in conflict over the Salares Altoandinos project, which ENAMI selected Rio Tinto to develop after a competitive process Eramet lost. ENAMI alleges Eramet has since used legacy mining concessions it holds over land the project needs — including disputes over water rights and easements — to obstruct the project through administrative and legal channels rather than negotiate a role in it. Trade coverage has warned the fight could run for years in Chilean courts and potentially reach international arbitration, holding up a project that would require more than $3 billion in investment and could unlock an estimated 4.5 million tonnes of lithium resources — supply that would otherwise flow into the same global battery and EV market every renewables and storage developer depends on.
Chile’s legal exposure sits inside a broader political shift that matters for how reliably that supply keeps growing. President José Antonio Kast took office in March 2026 on a pro-investment platform and has consolidated Chile’s mining and economy ministries to speed up permitting. But legal analysis of the new government’s actual framework — as distinct from its messaging — has found the underlying structure largely unchanged: lithium remains a state-controlled, non-concessionable resource in Chile, developed only through direct state participation or contracts like the one governing NovaAndino, with the country’s nuclear regulator, CCHEN, still holding authority over lithium exports. For anyone sourcing lithium out of Chile, that means the rules that determine supply timing and cost haven’t actually loosened yet, whatever the new government’s tone.
Argentina represents the more open alternative supply source, and its trajectory is directly relevant to how quickly global battery costs could ease if Chile’s legal disputes slow output there. Under Argentina’s RIGI investment regime, six lithium projects worth more than $6 billion are currently advancing, and the sector has secured $700 million in financing from IDB Invest. How much that translates into actual tonnes reaching battery manufacturers is genuinely disputed even between the two countries’ own analysts: Rystad Energy projects Argentina overtaking Chile as the world’s second-largest producer by 2030, and Argentina’s mining secretary has projected the country reaching 600,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2035; Chile’s own state copper commission, Cochilco, projects a slower path, with Argentina reaching only 415,000 tonnes and not overtaking Chile until 2035.
That gap matters concretely for battery and EV manufacturers trying to plan supply years out — the difference between those projections is the difference between a market that loosens meaningfully by 2030 and one that stays tight for another decade.
Argentina’s own growth plans face a comparable legal constraint to Chile’s, just from a different direction: environmental and indigenous-rights litigation. Courts overseeing lithium projects in the Salinas Grandes basin (Jujuy and Salta provinces) and in Catamarca’s Salar del Hombre Muerto have required companies to assess their water-extraction impacts cumulatively across all projects sharing an aquifer, rather than project by project — a standard that could slow new mine approvals even as RIGI accelerates investment commitments.
Against that backdrop, mining ministers from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru met in Santiago on 28 August 2026 to sign a joint declaration on critical minerals covering copper, lithium and rare earths, pledging cooperation on investment promotion and regulatory information-sharing — Chile’s mining minister called it “the first firm step toward a permanent alliance.” It’s a cooperative gesture layered on top of genuine competition between two of the same signatories for lithium market share, and a separate, more concrete bilateral track: Chile and Argentina reactivated a 28-year-old mining integration treaty in July 2026, with Chile offering its Pacific ports as a route — potentially 40% shorter and 15-25% cheaper — for Argentine lithium headed to the Asian battery manufacturers that are the actual end customers for all of this.
