LAS VEGAS, June 26 (Reuters) - Chilean miner SQM

plans to choose one or more direct lithium extraction

(DLE) technologies by next year in order to quickly expand

production of the electric vehicle battery metal in the Salar de

Atacama, an executive said on Wednesday.

The use of DLE technologies is a core part of SQM's

long-awaited joint venture agreement with state-controlled

Codelco, announced last month, as well as President Gabriel

Boric's push to reduce his country's use of water-wasting

evaporation ponds to produce the metal.

Chile is the world's second-largest lithium producer after

Australia, thanks to output from SQM and rival Albemarle

, which is planning its own use of DLE in the country.

Boric's mandate has sparked a frenzy among DLE companies to

operate in Chile, which has the world's largest lithium

reserves. But to date, DLE technology has not worked at

commercial scale without the use of ponds.

Santiago-based SQM studied more than 70 DLE technologies

before picking 12 for pilot testing, with two of those tests

happening now, Carlos Diaz, head of SQM's lithium division, told

Reuters on the sidelines of the Fastmarkets Lithium Supply and

Battery Raw Materials Conference in Las Vegas.

Given the large size and chemical complexity of the Atacama,

SQM is likely to pick several DLE companies as it works to phase

in the technologies to boost output to an annual range of

280,000 to 300,000 metric tons of lithium by 2060, up from an

estimated 200,000 tons this year, he said.

"We would like to have multiple (DLE) solutions," said Diaz,

an engineer by training who joined SQM in 1996. "It's difficult

to choose one that is going to fit and be suitable for all kinds

of different chemicals that can be in different types of brine."

Aurora Williams, Chile's mining minister, said in April she

had no plans to mandate a specific type of DLE technology for

use in the country.

SQM earlier this year tested a DLE technology from

France-based Adionics, in which it has an investment.

Key considerations for SQM include DLE's higher electricity

usage than evaporation ponds as well as the large freshwater use

of some versions, Diaz said. The company is also concerned about

how reinjection of brine after lithium is separated could affect

aquifers, he said.

"You have to be very careful with how you affect the

environmental equilibrium" of the aquifers, he added.

After the selection, SQM would have to apply for

environmental permits with Chilean regulators, a process that

could take up to three years, Diaz said.

Elsewhere, SQM has been making international investments

into hard rock lithium mining, including into Australia's Azure

Minerals, part of a push that Diaz says aims to broaden the

company's geographic focus.

"We have been exploring different alternatives outside of

Chile in order to diversify," Diaz said. "In order to keep

increasing the production of lithium as demand is growing, we

need to diversify and look for new resources."