REPRESENTATIVES of Chinese lithium giant Tianqi Lithium Corp. met with Chile’s top anti-trust prosecutor less than a month after Chilean authorities moved to block the miner from buying a coveted stake in Chile’s SQM, Chile’s lobbyist transparency website showed Tuesday.

Felipe Irarrazabal, head of the National Economic Prosecutor’s office, known by its Spanish initials FNE, met March 29 with three lobbyists for the Chinese miner to discuss “Corfo’s complaint against Tianqi Lithium,” according to the website.

The meeting at the prosecutor’s downtown Santiago office came as the FNE reviewed a complaint filed by Chile development agency Corfo. The complaint seeks to block the sale by Canada’s Nutrien Ltd. of a 32 percent stake in SQM to Chinese bidder Tianqi Lithium or any state-backed firm.

Tianqi Lithium in late 2017 presented a “non-binding” offer for the stake, according to Eduardo Bitran, former head of Corfo.

The approximately US$4 billion stake in SQM, the world’s lowest-cost producer of lithium, a key ingredient in rechargeable batteries, is considered a prize asset in the global race to secure resources to develop electric vehicles.

Chile’s development agency Corfo said in the March 9 complaint that the transaction would “gravely distort market competition.”

Together, Tianqi Lithium and SQM, the world’s second-biggest lithium producer after U.S.-based Albemarle Corp., would control 70 percent of the global lithium market, the document said.

The FNE has until August, with the possibility of further extensions, to determine whether to launch a full investigation.

Canadian fertilizer company Nutrien must sell its stake in SQM by next March as part of pledges to regulators who approved this year the merger of Agrium and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, which created Nutrien. SQM also has significant fertilizer production.

As well as Tianqi Lithium, four other companies, all Chinese, were also vying for the Nutrien stake, according to Bitran.

Chinese private equity firm GSR Capital was considering a bid for the stake, banking sources said last November.

Two other Chinese firms previously seen as potential bidders — Sinochem Group and Ningbo Shanshan — have both said that they were not participating.

(SD-Agencies)