The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources introduced mineral resource exploration technology to Aurora Williams, Minister of Mining of Chile, and Mathias Francke, Ambassador of Chile to Korea. Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources is enhancing cooperation with Chile, the world’s largest copper producer and lithium storage country.
On the 12th, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources announced that they discussed technological cooperation for increasing copper and lithium resource production in Chile with the attendance of Aurora Williams, Minister of Mining of Chile, and Mathias Francke, Ambassador of Chile to Korea.
Chile is known to have about 9.3 million tons of lithium resources, making it the world’s largest lithium storage country. The visit of Chile’s Ministry of Mining aims to strengthen cooperation between Korea and Chile’s core mineral supply chains by utilizing the eco-friendly lithium extraction technology held by the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources.
The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources held a seminar on mineral resource exploration, recovery, recycling, and overall mineral resource life cycle technologies, as well as groundwater utilization and management technologies. They introduced relevant research facilities to the Chilean delegation. Additionally, demonstrations were carried out on the ‘GeoAI platform’ that integrates mineral resource data into big data and the latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, as well as mineral resource exploration using drones.
Director Lee Pyung-gu of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources stated, “Technological cooperation on lithium with Chile is an important step in expanding Korea’s core mineral supply chain beyond Asia and Africa to South America” and mentioned, “We will strengthen cooperative research with Chile by applying Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources’ eco-friendly lithium extraction technology to ensure stable access to lithium resources.”