Chapter 10: Taking Care of Business

We had arranged a limo to pick us up at the airport and deliver us to our hotel in the downtown business district. I had again cautioned Emilia against speaking Spanish or talking business in the limo. So we managed on my English, dealing with a driver who I was fairly sure was pretending not to understand English as well as he really did.

At least he got us there quickly and took the most direct route.

After we had checked in and our bags had arrived with the bellhop, I took a device out of my computer backpack (I had not surrendered that to the bellhop; I always carried my computer and the paraphernalia on my own, ) and went around the room looking for signs of bugs. Emilia walked with me, as we conversed about nothing, and her eyes were bugging out when she realized that my paranoia was being proven right. Oh well! We would be careful, plus I had a trick or two up my sleeves.

That night, I took Emilia out to dinner at Giratorios, a restaurant at the top of one of the many hi-rise office buildings in the downtown area, that was within walking distance of our hotel. This particular restaurant has an unusual feature: the floor rotated, so that you get a 360-degree view of the city. The food was good, if not great, but good as well. A couple of drinks and some wine helped us appreciate the view.

Back at the hotel we went to our separate rooms for the night and went to sleep. At least I did. We had agreed to meet downstairs for breakfast at 7:30 this next morning.

We entered the room where we would meet with the reps from the Ministry of Mining precisely a 9:00 AM. The Ministry of Finance had also sent a representative, as well as the Ministry of Public Works, who I had asked to have present as well. Carlos Ortiz, from Mining and Carolina Moreno, from Finance, were surprised to find their colleague, Alfredo Saez from Public works there, but they seemed to be willing to grin and bear it.

Emilia got a chance to use her ‘bluetooth’ earphone (read listening device) as the three of them were in a conclave of sorts when we arrived.

Emilia told me that they were quizzing Alfredo, in a less than cordial manner, what the hell he was doing there. Didn’t he know that these negotiations were confidential and why the hell should someone whose department was in charge of building bridges and roads be in attendance? He answer, in truth, that he had no more idea than they, but had been tasked by his Minister! Oh well!

We did the usual meet and greet, with coffee and various other drinks offered. We declined, because we had just come from breakfast, and we had our own already open water bottles. That relieved us of the worry that anything might be in a drink.

Emilia got up and distributed the proposal that we had prepared to the three Chileans.

Then I started my PowerPoint proposal.

It was almost funny how shocked the government reps were! After all, they were basically bureaucrats, people who made their living following rules. Thinking outside of the box is almost a career ending heresy. And, honestly, was I trying to get them to think out of the box.

But, as I pointed out, in lieu of paying the government cash, I was going to spend as much (or even more, to be honest) as our concession would have paid the government in fees for mining the lithium, but I would be solving the external criticism for ALL of the concessions by addressing the issue of pumping out the brine and just letting it evaporate.

I would also be solving the internal political problems of potentially reducing the availability of fresh water for the communities living adjacent to the areas where mining was taking place. We would be at least replacing (and perhaps producing a surplus) of fresh water.

It also meant that the government could squeeze the other applicants for cash, since they government wouldn’t need to get the remediation done by each concessionaire, because we would have already provided it for ALL of the mining operations.

They finally understood why the rep from the Public Works department was there: what we were not providing was the pipes, roads and other infrastructure to distribute the water beyond our plant and concession, as well as the improved roads needed to access the mine. That would force the government to ‘buy into’ the project — to have some skin in the game.

Of course, I hadn’t expected a decision that day, but I think that the three reps from the ministries were at least mostly on-board with the concept. Now they had to take them back to the respective bosses.