Albemarle Corp, the world's largest lithium producer, said on Wednesday it had reached a Labour contract agreement with unions at its Salar plant in Chile's Salt Lake Atacama, ending a month-long strike.
The Salt Lake's "Albemarle Salar" union went on strike in August after failing to reach an agreement with Abbott. The union has 135 workers, about half the Salar plant's workforce.
Arpo said in a statement that it had signed a new 36-month contract with the union and that workers would return to work immediately.
"Operations at the Salar plant are back to normal today, with special emphasis on worker safety and production work returning to pre-strike levels," the company said.
Throughout the month-long strike, Arpo maintained that the ongoing strike had not affected its lithium production in Chile. In a statement on Wednesday, the company again clarified that while the strike had reduced the amount of lithium-rich brine pumped at the Salar plant, it had not affected overall production at its nearby La Negra chemical plant, the main facility that extracts brine and processes it into battery-grade lithium carbonate.
The Atacama Salt Flat, where Yabao's Salar lithium plant is located, is the world's largest lithium salt lake with the highest concentration of lithium, the largest reserves and the most mature mining conditions. SQM, abbott's main rival and the world's second-largest lithium company, also operates nearby.
SQM's lithium production has also run into trouble there recently. Last week, the Atacama Indigenous Council (CPA) asked local regulators to suspend environmental approvals for SQM.
Arpo, which has four unions in Chile, had reached labor agreements with the three remaining unions at its Chilean plants earlier this year, and the company said the agreement with the Salar workers' union capped negotiations for the year.
