Earthmoving and pond civil works in the Catamarca puna
A lithium pond is, first of all, more than a million cubic metres of soil moved at more than 4,000 metres. Tres Quebradas' contractor publishes the complete bill of quantities and there is the market with nobody's estimates: in the first 200-hectare stage, 2.1 million m² of crust to break, 662,800 m³ of borrow excavation, 242,300 m³ of berms and 420,500 m³ of floor prob bill of quantities published by the contractor, with winds of 20 to 120 km/h and temperatures from 26 °C to −30 °C prob bill of quantities published by the contractor. The second batch, which the contractor announces as started, adds another 2.1 million m² of crust, 162,000 m³ of berms and 374,000 m³ of base course, in eight months that include winter prob project sheet of the second batch. And here the diagnosis flips versus almost every other line of business in the province: this line of business does exist in Catamarca —31 construction companies and 12 equipment rental firms in the category map the provincial mining suppliers' chamber published in 2023— and there is a joint venture of three Catamarca companies with 60 kilometres of road awarded in the Puna prob El Ancasti, 31-Aug-2024, with 11 kilometres paved by the end of February 2026 prob El Ancasti, 26-Feb-2026. The problem is not capability: it is that both pond packages are led by the same construction company from Entre Ríos —in the first, in a joint venture with a Catamarca firm—, and the only open and proven door is to enter as a partner.
A window: the ponds and platforms are built 2026-2031 with four projects under construction at once; afterwards demand falls to road and civil maintenance in operation.
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What the market is made of
The TAM is activity, not what you will invoice — but here the split has a peculiarity: a cubic meter is not imported. To move the soil, Zijin hired an Argentine joint venture. So what is captive is not foreign trade: it is the contracting structure — what the head of the contract executes with its own fleet and what the operator prefers to buy as equipment rather than contract. Your gap is the items the lead releases (crust breaking, roads, rental with an operator), operating maintenance and the complete package if you enter via a joint venture.
~USD 28 M/year (~60% of the TAM) estim: what the lead from outside the province executes with its own fleet —the largest block, because earthmoving is the published scope of the contract leads at Tres Quebradas verif and at Fénix verif, and not a sub-scope they subcontract entirely thesis—.
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~USD 8-18 M/year addressable by a local or national entrant (midpoint ~USD 13 M/year) estim: the items the lead releases thesis —crust breaking (USD 2.1-4.2 M per stage estim), equipment rental with an operator, transport of equipment and borrow material, mobilization, internal roads, drainage and minor civil works—, plus a complete pond package via a joint venture with a local partner (with a local precedent: a Catamarca partner joined two contractors from other provinces in the joint venture that signed the Sal de Vida carbonate plant contract prob; local high-altitude capability is proven on RP 43 prob), plus almost all road and civil maintenance in operation, which is local by nature thesis.
USD 1.5-5 M/year for an entrant within 2-3 years (midpoint ~USD 3 M/year) estim. Year 1: equipment rental with an operator on an open front plus a crust breaking sub-scope (USD 0.5-3 M).
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Who really pays?
In three of the four ways in, whoever signs the purchase order is not the mine but the contractor who won the package. There are three doors and they are quoted differently:
At Tres Quebradas LIEX S.A. contracted the first batch of ponds with a joint venture of companies from other provinces: 200 hectares finished prob; the second batch, another 200, is published by the contractor as started, with no date and without naming partners prob. The Chinese operator did not bring a Chinese contractor: it hired an Argentine joint venture, with a Catamarca firm inside prob.
Whoever wins the package already moves soil: at Tres Quebradas, the three construction companies that built the ponds have earthmoving as their own scope verif. That they release items through subcontracts is not published unconf; that is where we read the local firm comes in thesis. The precedent of a Catamarca partner in a large job: a Catamarca partner joined the joint venture with two contractors from other provinces that signed the contract for Sal de Vida's carbonate plant prob, and that joint venture appears in the provincial chamber's member listing verif.
At Fénix it was done by a Rosario construction company in phases 1 and 2 of its contract, on the salar: its published scope runs from site preparation earthmoving to concrete foundations, the brine pipeline, the roads and pavements and the earthmoving for the ponds verif. The subsequent maintenance —access roads cut off by snow, pond edges, platforms— is local by nature: it is answered in hours thesis.
Which projects move this demand
Tres Quebradas stage 2: plant and infrastructure for 40,000 t/year of lithium carbonate via direct extraction (DLE)…
see the project →Lithium brine project in the Salar del Hombre Muerto (western zone), to produce 12,000 t/yr of lithium carbonate equivalent…
see the project →Expansion (Phase 1B) of the historic Fénix lithium-carbonate project in the Salar del Hombre Muerto, operated by Rio Tinto via Minera del Altiplano…
see the project →Catamarca's largest copper project and the largest capital investment in the province. MARA integrates the Agua Rica deposit (Andalgalá)…
see the project →When the window opens
In earthmoving the warning arrives months ahead: the pond is quantified in a permit before it is tendered and it is the first job on the schedule. Two fronts remain in sight —Tres Quebradas' second batch of ponds, which its contractor announces with no published date, and the expansion of Hombre Muerto Oeste's Phase 1— and two are winding down: Fénix's Phase 1B and Sal de Vida Stage 1 already produced for the first time in the second quarter of 2026. And within each year there is a cut-off that is no longer a weather impression: since January 2026 a provincial resolution establishes a winter procedure from 1 May to 30 September (or earlier, if conditions in the area warrant it). The campaign does not stop, but it is planned differently. These four numbers are the ones that give notice.
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See the evidence
See the evidence
Sal de Vida Stage 2 is 5.98 M m³ = 39% of the volume ceiling, and it is a 'very preliminary' Class 4 estimate for years 3-40 of the mine plan, not sanctioned. It is the largest block and the most fragile: if the price does not cooperate, the TAM ceiling collapses on its own. The floor of the range already assumes it is not done.
3Q Phase 2 already has its RIGI resolution published —29-Jul-2026, with USD 594,136,000 verif Resolución 1153/2026 of computable investment—, so the risk is no longer that the act will not come out.
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It is the local equivalent of 'direct import': a m³ is not imported, but the lead contractor can execute everything with its own fleet and the operator can buy equipment instead of contracting (at MARA, 10.1% of capex in own equipment against 21.6% in mine contractor).
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The 50/50 split of the disputed Hombre Muerto strip is voided once Congress settles the boundary verif annex to Salta's Ley 8523, agreement for the Sal de Oro project.
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See the remaining 6 risks
Here it bites harder than in any other niche: breaking the crust IS the physical intervention on the salt flat that is being challenged — 210 ha of broken crust per package.
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It is the politically hottest field precisely because there are local bidders: in June 2026 the Tinogasta mining suppliers' chamber (CAPROMITI) threatened to block the roads in Fiambalá over reports that Zijin-Liex was partnering with a hauler from Córdoba, which the mining company denied prob Salta Mining.
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Past the peak, demand falls to road and civil maintenance in operation: USD 2-10 M/year for the whole province.
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Fénix is selective adsorption verif Resolución 431/2026, Kachi is ion exchange and 3Q is hybrid unconf, and Rio Tinto states 'Design One, Build Many' verif Rio Tinto lithium presentation, 8-Dec-2025: every new tonne through DLE is pond that does not get built.
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If MARA goes into construction, it competes for the same base of 31 construction firms and 4 trucking companies: the initial capex in its 2021 pre-feasibility study allocated USD 601 M to 'mine contractor' and USD 341 M to Agua Rica infrastructure verif Yamana Gold's MARA project presentation, January 2021, a multiple of the entire lithium pipeline.
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RP 43 shows it: for the first stage there was a single bid, of more than ARS 33,000 million against an official budget of ARS 24,353 million, at least 35% above it prob El Ancasti, 31-Aug-2024.
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The opportunity in depth
The opportunity in depth
Equipment rental with an operator to whoever is already on site. The only door that does not require winning a tender — and Tres Quebradas' second batch of ponds is announced by its contractor as started, in equipment mobilization and crust breaking, with no published date. The provincial mining suppliers' chamber listed 12 rental firms in 2023, with 4x4s, lighting towers, aerial work platforms, chemical toilets and sale of road machinery: heavy equipment suitable for more than 4,000 metres, with an operator and on-site maintenance, is a different product.
Crust breaking as a sub-scope. The perfect entry item: 2.1 million m² per stage (USD 2-4 M estim), low technology content, zero liner risk because it is executed before the geomembrane exists, it is the first item on the schedule —so it gets invoiced early— and as we read it the lead subcontracts it without resistance because it does not move the package's margin thesis.
Internal roads, minor platforms and the maintenance retainer. USD 1-3 M a year estim, recurring. It is the only thing that survives 2031, and it is structurally local: an access cut off by snow or an eroded shoulder is solved in hours, not by mobilizing a fleet from Rosario. It is the line that turns a job into a client.
A pond package of your own, via a joint venture with a local partner. 50-100 hectares is USD 3-12 M; the complete 200 ha package, USD 13-24 M estim. The vehicle is the one the rule itself designs —a joint venture with at least 50% local suppliers— and it has two precedents: a Catamarca partner, in the joint venture with two contractors from other provinces that signed the USD 130 M contract for Sal de Vida's carbonate plant prob, and a joint venture of three Catamarca companies on the first stage of RP 43, at puna elevation, awarded in August 2024 with a bid of more than ARS 33,000 million prob. It is not a legal acrobatic: it is this market's normal route.
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When you get paid, and what blocks it
already in
split
The two halite pond batches that LIEX S.A. (Zijin) contracted at Tres Quebradas: 200 ha finished + 200 ha of a second stage the contractor announces as started, with no published date, with a bill of quantities published by the contractor prob (adding both: 4.18 M m² of crust breaking, 404,300 m³ of berms and 794,500 m³ of floor and base course; the 662,800 m³ of borrow are from the first only, because the second does not publish that item prob) and an 8-month schedule including winter in the second.
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Civil works for phases 1 and 2 of the Fénix plant expansion according to its contract —the sheet does not name the RIGI's Phase 1B—, status 'Executed' in the Catamarca puna, with the verbatim scope the project declares: site preparation earthmoving, reinforced concrete foundations, brine pipeline and drainage, fire water network, earthing, drains and underground works, roads, pavements and fencing, an equalization pond with geomembrane, earthmoving for the 'Piletas Ponds', a biodigester and a nitrifying bed.
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One documented precedent of a local partner inside a large package: the joint venture of two contractors from other provinces with a Catamarca partner signed with Galaxy Lithium the engineering, procurement and construction contract for Sal de Vida's carbonate plant, a 130 million dollar job, with clauses giving priority to hiring residents of Antofagasta de la Sierra prob, under a 70/30 policy unconf.
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First stage of RP 43: 60.3 km of earthworks and paving between Antofagasta de la Sierra and the border with Salta prob; the Ministerio de Infraestructura y Obras Civiles of Catamarca awarded it in August 2024 to this joint venture, the sole bidder, with an official budget of ARS 24,353 million, a bid of more than ARS 33,000 million and a 24-month schedule prob.
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See the remaining 6 players
A vertical integration threat: it sells the complete pond from the ground up: site preparation and grading, construction, geomembrane installation, containment berms and supervision of the ponds in use verif. If it comes in, it takes earthmoving and liner together and closes the subcontract door from both sides.
The 2023 registry (19 categories, 123 memberships) declares 31 construction companies with «civil engineering works, earthmoving and road maintenance» and 12 members in equipment rental and sales, whose declared description is rental of machines and 4x4 vehicles, lighting towers, aerial work platforms, fuel tankers, chemical toilets and sale of road machinery prob. None declares rental of a heavy earthmoving fleet with an operator thesis. None is named in a pond package. It is at once the entrant's competing base and its pool of joint-venture partners. A 2023 count, transcribed in that year's Investor Manual, and out of date as a measurement of today's supply: the Re.P.E.M. went from 194 suppliers in May-2025 to 229 in May-2026 prob.
They do not execute a single m³: they write the geotechnical specification and the QA plan —pond floor elevations, tolerances, compaction densities, tests— and they decide what gets certified and who qualifies. Technical homologation goes through them, not through the provincial counter.
At MARA, 'mine equipment' is 10.1% of the initial capex (USD 281 M) against 'mine contractor' at 21.6% (USD 601 M), out of USD 2,781 M in the 2021 internal pre-feasibility study verif: the buy-vs-contract decision is explicit and the supplier does not control it. And at Sal de Vida the technical report plans to harvest all the ponds with the company's own machinery verif. Every m³ the operator does with its own equipment never reaches the market.
A figure that corrects the analogy with san juan: in the province's largest package, the Chinese operator did NOT bring in a Chinese contractor — it hired an Argentine joint venture. The geomembrane came in imported from China: 16 trucks via the Paso San Francisco in November 2022 prob prob. In earthmoving there is no importable m³: the risk of 'direct import through the operator's chain' exists but did not materialize in the measured case.
From Catamarca, from ANDALGALÁ -the department with 36 registrations in the Re.P.E.M., second after the capital-. Declared activities: construction, repair and restoration of transport infrastructure works; wholesale of construction materials; Rental of machinery AND equipment without an operator; road freight transport including specialized freight; and manufacture of non-metallic mineral products. It appears in the supplier registry of CAMYEN, the provincial State mining company. It is the exact profile of the equipment rental firm this niche identifies as the local leg of earthmoving. What is not proven: not a single work front was documented for it on the Salar del Hombre Muerto lithium projects; its presence is evidenced in the province and in the category, not on the salar.
The jobs it createsIt is the niche with the most direct employment per dollar billed of all the sectors we measured in Catamarca, and it arrives first: earthmoving is the first job on the schedule — before the plant, before the liner, before production. La lectura completa para el que busca trabajo, en la hoja de este nicho para la gente →
calculate it
The number is our own estimate. The calculation, step by step, is below.
The full calculation, step by step
Concentration High per package, low by category, and with an asymmetry that defines the whole route in.In ponds: 2 of 2 documented packages with the same extra-provincial lead, from Entre Ríos —in the first batch, in a joint venture with another outside company and with a Catamarca firm—, with a single buyer (LIEX/Zijin).In plant civil works: one contractor per operator, led from outside (at Fénix and at Sal de Vida, where the lead is the joint venture of two contractors from other provinces with a Catamarca partner) — there is no visible competition per package, there is award by track record and relationship.In the category as such, concentration is low: 31 construction companies and 12 rental firms in the provincial chamber's 2023 category map and 229 active suppliers in the Re.P.E.M. (May-2026), but with 75 of 194 concentrated in the capital and only 12 in Antofagasta de la Sierra, the department of the three Hombre Muerto projects: the supply exists where the work is not.The asymmetry: the concentration is not one of technical capability —a joint venture of three Catamarca companies has had the first stage of 60 km of earthworks and paving in the middle of the puna awarded since August 2024 prob El Ancasti, Aug 31, 2024, with 11 kilometers already paved by the end of February 2026 prob El Ancasti, Feb 26, 2026— but of position in the contracting chain. The big packages are awarded to whoever has already done them, and the only open, documented door is the joint venture with a local partner (the same local partner, twice). Conclusion: the market is not unserved and the local supply is not incapable — it is displaced from the head of the contract.
The rule that moves it
This niche has two rules pushing it and one that decides its margin. Pushing: the local procurement commitments written into acts of State: Hombre Muerto Oeste declares that 95.34% of what it pays suppliers goes to local suppliers —the highest percentage among the resolutions of Catamarca and of the zone shared with Salta, according to our comparison— and Fénix 60%, three times the regime's minimum; those commitments count any supplier domiciled in the country, and only for goods and works, and earthmoving work falls in there. The other rule pushing is the Re.P.E.M., the provincial registry of mining suppliers: mining companies have to place at least 70 % of their annual contracting with registered suppliers, and the registry requires domicile of two years' standing, half the partners local and 70% of the professional, technical and administrative staff from Catamarca — and it admits the joint venture with a local partner as a shortcut, with two proven precedents. And the margin is decided by Ley Impositiva 5.927: the same contract pays 2.5% turnover tax if it is classified as construction and up to 4.8% if it is classified as a mining support service, plus 1.5% stamp tax on the contract (art. 26 subs. 2) — and the turnover tax classification is chosen at registration, not at invoicing.
See the underlying reading
The underlying policy that opens up this demand. It is the same inference declared by the rules and the program pillars pushing in this direction.
the RIGI promise is keptSee the full legal grounds
Where the number comes from
the ponds alone give ~USD 23 M/year (2.13 × 8.5 plus 3.55 × 1.5) —with the unit price cut back to 8.5 USD/m³—; adding the site civil works that are not pond (midpoint ~USD 20 M/year, almost half the niche) and operating maintenance (~USD 5 M/year), the midpoint reaches ~USD 47 M/year. The full band is USD 10-101 M/year depending on which stages get built and at what price. The hard variant —only what comes out of a published bill of quantities— is USD 3-66 M/year, midpoint ~USD 27 M
See the calculation, the variables and how it was validated
The TAM is built from four variables you can watch from outside: how many hectares of pond get built, how many cubic meters and square meters each hectare demands, how much each unit costs delivered to site and over how many years it is executed. Change one and the number is recalculated.
A robustness check by two independent routes. Top-down: Catamarca's portfolio under construction moves on the order of USD 1,500-2,400 M over the window, and earthmoving together with site civil works runs 12-20% of a lithium project's capex ⇒ USD 36-96 M/year, an interval our range contains with a more conservative floor. By pace: the only documented package did 200 hectares in 8 months including winter, so the midpoint equals ~1.6 packages running simultaneously — consistent with three or four open fronts and not with a single one. There is also a reading that can rarely be made: this niche and the geosynthetics one are the two halves of the same pond package, and it is worth looking at them together. It goes as context and not as a third confirmation, for method transparency: both rest on the same Sal de Vida capex line, so they back each other in a circle. The figure stands on the two routes above, which share no inputs.
The number rests on a few variables. The formula shows how it moves when each one changes; and each variable carries its freshness seal — how often it is worth revisiting. estim
This is the niche with the best-measured demand in the province, and not because we calculate it: the contractor itself publishes the bill of quantities —cubic metres of excavation, of berms and of floor, and square metres of crust breaking— for the two Tres Quebradas pond batches (the second does not publish the borrow item), and we reopened those sheets to confirm every number. What does not exist is a public price for earthmoving on a high-altitude mining project, so the USD per cubic metre is an explicit assumption and we cross-check it by three routes that share no inputs: the pond capex declared in Sal de Vida's technical report, a real puna road contract in the same province (the first stage of Route 43, with its official budget published by the provincial press) and the productivity physics of a fleet at more than 4,000 metres. All three give overlapping bands. The annual total is our own estimate and we say so.
Coverage: CAPPROMIN's category map, the provincial chamber of mining suppliers (19 categories and 123 memberships, as of 2023: 31 construction firms and 12 equipment rental firms, with the detail of what each one declares it rents out), and the CASEMICA & ER member list · Sep 14, 2026 · not reviewed: the Re.P.E.M., which is the mandatory provincial registry, publishes the total number of registrants and their breakdown by department but never the names; and the provincial government's supplier register (COMPR.AR Catamarca) is queried one at a time and cannot be listed from outside
How to cite this figure: Despegue (2026). Earthmoving and pond civil works in the Catamarca puna · Catamarca. despegueargentina.com/en/catamarca/movimiento-suelo-obra-civil-puna · terms of use
Neighbouring markets2 markets in the same group, from USD 2,5 to USD 27 M a year
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