Institutional Lithium Program for Mexico 2026-2030

Executive Summary

On July 24, 2026, the Institutional Lithium Program for Mexico 2026-2030 (the “Program“) was published in the Federal Official Gazette (Diario Oficial de la Federación), issued by Litio para México (“LitioMx“), the state-owned company responsible for lithium and sectorized under the Ministry of Energy (Secretaría de Energía, “SENER“).

In plain terms, the Program is a government work plan: it defines what the State intends to do with lithium and lithium batteries between 2026 and 2030. It does not constitute a statute or a regulation and, in and of itself, imposes no new obligations on companies or private parties.

LitioMx’s Board of Directors approved it on May 22, 2026, and SENER validated it on June 1, 2026.

The underlying legal framework bears recalling: in Mexico, lithium belongs to the Nation and constitutes a “strategic area.” The Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos) and the Mining Law (Ley de Minería) reserve its exploration and exploitation to the State and prohibit granting concessions, permits, or contracts to private parties with respect to this mineral. That rule was reinforced by the constitutional amendment of October 2024. The Program, in turn, is grounded in the National Development Plan 2025-2030 (Plan Nacional de Desarrollo 2025-2030) and the Energy Sector Program (Programa Sectorial de Energía, “PROSENER“).

At its core, the Program charts the path by which the State seeks to move from lithium as a raw resource toward its entire value chain (materials, batteries, and energy storage), through six objectives with 2030 targets (all subject to the corresponding budget allocation). For the electromobility, energy, and storage industries, it represents, above all, an indication of direction and an opportunity to partner with the State, rather than a source of immediate obligations.

Practical Impact

What the Program proposes. The State organizes its work around six objectives for 2026-2030:

• To better understand the country’s lithium deposits (the initial, exploration stage).
• To develop the technology to process lithium and convert it into battery-grade material (the intermediate stage).
• To install a pilot plant for assembling battery packs.
• To study and test, on a small scale, battery energy storage.
• To make the entire chain more efficient and cleaner, including recycling.
• To create a dedicated legal framework for lithium.

The Program sets a 2030 target for each objective, though it clarifies that all of them are contingent upon the budget allocated to them. In summary, by 2030 it proposes to: (a) achieve a complete technical understanding of the country’s lithium resources (advancing from 30% to 100% completion); (b) build the pilot battery plant from the ground up; (c) advance battery-materials technology from the laboratory to validation under real-world conditions (TRL 5); and (d) have the dedicated legal framework for lithium drafted (a target of 90 instruments, including statutes, regulations, and other provisions).

Relevance to electromobility. The Program’s assessment draws on official data to illustrate how closely lithium is tied to electric vehicles: electric-vehicle batteries account for more than 88% of the world’s lithium consumption (USGS); in Mexico, 7% of the vehicles sold in 2024 were electric or hybrid (INEGI); and the battery pack price fell to USD 108 per kWh in 2025, 8% lower than in 2024 (BloombergNEF). Because Mexico does not yet manufacture cells at scale and imports them (China concentrates more than 70% of the world’s cell-production capacity), Objective 3 proposes a pilot battery plant, in anticipation of demand from projects such as the Olinia electric car and the Taruk bus. For automakers, suppliers, fleets, and nearshoring investors, this is not a new obligation: it is a signal of the government’s direction.

Relevance to energy and storage. The Program references storage rules that are already binding, but through other channels—not through this Notice: the 2025 Electricity Sector Law (Ley del Sector Eléctrico) recognized storage as a stand-alone activity and created the National Energy Commission (Comisión Nacional de Energía, “CNE“), which in April 2026 issued the rules for connecting electric energy storage systems (“SAEE“) to the grid.

Under that framework, (a) private solar generation must have its own storage or pay the Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad, “CFE“) for backup; (b) new solar and wind plants must install batteries equal to 30% of their capacity, with at least three hours of discharge (effective March 2025); and (c) official planning contemplates 8.4 GW of storage by 2038.

This Notice does not create those rules: it merely cites them as context, and confirms that the State intends to help size—and, over time, supply—that market.

Considerations

i) The Program imposes no new obligations. Its sole legal effect is to publish a government work plan. It should be read as an indication of the State’s direction and intentions, not as a requirement demanding immediate compliance.

ii) What warrants monitoring and tracking is the legal framework (Objective 6). The Program anticipates the drafting of a dedicated lithium law—separate from the Mining Law (Ley de Minería)—along with regulations and other provisions. That is where binding rules may later emerge for those who work with lithium, batteries, or their value chain.

iii) There are no concessions over lithium. No private company may hold a lithium concession. The sole avenue for participation is association with the state-owned company (LitioMx), which is empowered to partner with private parties in the production, processing, and distribution of lithium derivatives. Any party seeking to enter extraction or processing must contemplate that scheme.

iv) If you operate in electromobility or storage, read it as an opportunity. The Program establishes as State priorities the local assembly of batteries, materials development, and energy storage. Companies in electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, battery storage systems (BESS/SAEE), solar generation paired with storage, and engineering (EPC) may begin positioning themselves as suppliers or technology partners, with the caveat that each target depends on budget allocation and on the degree of execution actually achieved.

v) Caveats. The Program itself acknowledges limits worth weighing before making decisions: (a) its execution depends entirely on the federal budget, as LitioMx has no revenue of its own, so every 2030 target is conditional; (b) Mexican lithium sits in clays (about 1.7 million tonnes, mainly in Sonora), requires still-experimental extraction technology, and its commercial viability is not yet proven, so a domestic lithium supply is several years away and uncertain; and (c) the Program itself flags short-term market risks, such as possible oversupply, weak demand, and volatility in lithium prices. In short: the ambition is clear, but execution and timing are not guaranteed.

vi) Near-term opportunity. It helps to separate two horizons. The lithium-to-batteries chain is long-term, State-led and budget-dependent.

By contrast, the energy and storage market is already moving under the electricity-sector rules that the Program cites as context: the National Electric System Expansion Plan contemplates roughly 6,400 MW of new capacity for the private sector and a new interconnection-contract model in 2026; the “Solar Roofs for Well-Being” program targets 10,000 homes in 2026; and mixed public-private investment schemes are contemplated.

vii) Other points to keep in mind. Not only lithium: Objective 2 is expressly extendable to other strategic battery inputs such as nickel, graphite, manganese or silicon. In the short term, battery reuse and reconditioning have better economics than recycling, a concrete circular-economy niche. And private participation runs through LitioMx (coordinated with SENER), which mentions the “Well-Being Development Hubs” as a channel to build local supply.