The general director of the “Rio Tinto” company in Serbia, Richard Story, said that Serbia with jadarite could satisfy the needs for lithium on the global market. Jadarite is a mineral that is highly sought because it contains lithium and boron. Story said that this summer was produced the first merchandise with lithium from the Serbian jadarite.
Story said that “Rio Tinto” is very pleased with previous jadarite researches, which show that the planned investment will be economically viable.
In the valley of Jadar, near Loznice, there is a jadarite finding with more than 100 million tons, which could provide about 19 million tons of lithium, said .
He did not specify which goods has been already produced by Serbian lithium, but said it was a sign that the project would be successfully implemented and that Serbia would have a great benefit from it.
Jadarite is the unique boron mineral that contains lithium and he was found by a team of geologists of “Rio Tinto” company in 2004th.
According to him, lithium has wide use, for example, in the construction industry, automotive industry, medicine, mobile production.
Story added that the automotive industry had a growing demand for lithium, which was used in batteries for electric cars.
He said that from jadarite could be obtained about 12 million tons of sodium borate.
“We want positioning Serbia on the global market of green minerals”, said Story.
Jadarite is unique mineral which at the same tine contains both lithium and boron ore.
Earlier was announced that Rio Tinto, one of the leading companies in the mining and metallurgy sector, would construct factory for processing if the researches were positive.
According to him, if this investment would be realized, that would also mean the construction of the processing factory by which much more people would get jobs.
Jadar basin with the amounts and content of lithium and boron ore is one of the most important in the world, according to a Strategy in which it was assessed that Serbia by 2020th would generate annual revenues from the lithium production in the amount of approximately 124 million dollars or up to 18 percent of total revenues from the production of metallic mineral resources in the country.
Source Serbia Energy
