BELGRADE (Serbia), February 27 (SeeNews) – British-Australian mining group Rio Tinto will support Serbia in finding a strategic investor for the construction of a plant for manufacturing electric batteries or electric vehicles (EV) in Loznica, prime minister Ana Brnabic has said.
The strategic investor will use raw materials from the Jadar lithium borate project which Rio Tinto is expected to start developing near Loznica, Brnabic said during a visit to the city in western Serbia, according to a government press release issued on Wednesday.
Rio Tinto is expected to make a positive investment decision on the Jadar project and to start the construction of a lithium production facility at the end of next year, Brnabic said.
The mining group is expected to invest about $1.5 billion (1.4 billion euro) in the project and to start the production of jadarite, a unique mineral containing both lithium and boron, at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025, energy minister Aleksandar Antic said.
Rio Tinto discovered the lithium borate deposit in the valley of the Jadar river in 2004. Jadar is estimated to contain 10% of the world's deposits of lithium, the primary raw material for the production of batteries for electric vehicles. The Jadar lithium borate discovery in Serbia is estimated at 135.7 million tonnes with a weighted average concentration of 1.86% of lithium oxide.
($ = 0.914484 euro)