The South Andean territory that goes from the Bolivian Altiplano to the Chilean coast and the Argentinian Andes is a strategic region for the global energy transition, with immense reserves of copper, lithium and other critical minerals essentials for the decarbonization of the world economy. The exponential rise of these extractive industries is profoundly redrawing the socio-spatial structures of this region of the planet. The purpose of our presentation is to study, not the localized modes of mining extraction, but how these minerals circulate, are exchanged and transported across the Andean space and to global points of consumption. How, where and to where are lithium and the other minerals of the energy transition flowing? Based on the itinerant seminar "Las carreteras de la transición energética" realized in December of 2023, and on surveys dedicated to the contemporary mining development (ANR Ecoboom) our intervention will present the first results of this approach, showing how extraction sites connect to each other, generating new customs issues, new flows of goods and new processes of regional integration. This dynamic goes against the grain of "resource nationalism" and poses in new terms the question of local and national sovereignty in the face of new international attempts to control resources.