Rio Tinto has marked the official opening of two lithium projects in Catamarca province, Argentina, the Fenix 1B expansion and the new Sal de Vida operation, following a combined investment of around $1.4 billion. President Javier Milei and Catamarca Governor Raul Jalil joined chief executive Simon Trott for a visit to Fenix and an inauguration event with national and provincial authorities, employees, suppliers and community representatives.
Both projects achieved first production in the second quarter of 2026, ahead of plan, and are now ramping up. Together they will add 25,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent capacity once fully ramped up. Fenix 1B adds 10,000 tonnes a year to Fenix, Argentina’s first commercial lithium operation, which began in 1997, taking its total target capacity to about 40,000 tonnes a year. Sal de Vida, about 20 kilometres northeast of Fenix, is a new operation with a target of 15,000 tonnes a year.
Trott framed the openings as execution evidence toward a larger target, Rio Tinto’s goal of 200,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent production capacity globally by 2028. The Argentine portfolio also includes the Rincon project and operations and projects across Catamarca, Jujuy and Salta. Rio Tinto said around 70 percent of the approximately $4 billion in growth capital to be invested across its Argentine lithium operations is expected to be spent with local suppliers.
Milei used the inauguration to claim the policy credit, saying the expansion was made possible by Argentina again creating incentives for producing resources essential to the modern world, and that a company of Rio Tinto’s scale investing again validates the decisions of the past few years. That political framing is part of the investment case either way: the projects were delivered under the current incentive regime, and their ramp up is now the test of volumes, not approvals.
The market read is muted so far. Rio Tinto shares were $85.93, up 0.22 percent, in the market tables updated October 29, with lithium and battery miners up 0.10 percent on the day and still down 0.81 percent on the week. The openings remove construction risk on 25,000 tonnes of capacity; realized prices during the ramp up, in a lithium market the World Bank this week described as soft in the third quarter, will decide what the capacity earns.