Serbia: Rio Tinto is interested in opening the mine processing facility

Published on 26. February 2014., News Serbia Energy

Mining Company Rio Tinto, which explores jadarite in Loznica, is interested in opening the mine and processing of lithium on the site of the former viscous.It is difficult to specify when the mine will be open, but it is true that we are interested in the area of Viskoza, which could be useful for the processing plant construction, said the director of Rio Tinto in Serbia, Richard Story.

Responding to a question whether this means that there will not be just jadarite mining in Serbia, but it is also planned its processing, Story answered “practically yes” because there must be a facility for lithium extracting from ore before we offer it.

“Viskoza is one of the locations we are interested in and we have to gather all the information to make sure that the site meets our needs and future plants of jadarite processing”, said the company’s director.

He could not say when the mine would be open, and pointed out that it depended on the internal company’s procedures. Rio Tinto is still in the phaseof jadarite research, he said and expressed the hope that after this phase followed the mine opening, but before that we needed to be sure that the project was sustainable in all respects – that was socially acceptable, environmentally safe and economically viable.

Story,however, pointed out that no one could expect to be open a lot of jobs in the mine, because it was working with high technologies. He added that the company Rio Tinto had locations around the world where they set the highest work standards and those standards he wanted to implement in Serbia, respecting all environmental regulations.

Mayor of Loznica, Vidoje Petrovic, confirmed that municipality had excellent cooperation with representatives of mining companies and supported them in their work, because economic conditions in Loznica would largely depended on this important project.

“This is a unique ore that requires special processing method. Until now the company has invested more than 70 million dollars in research, and we look forward to confirmation that will continue both activities in the research, and the project team preparations which includes the world’s best experts in the company “, said Petrovic.

“What is encouraging is that in a serious way the entire Viskoza complex has been analyzed and in this regard, representatives of the company already contacted the local government, but also the Privatization Agency, the Agency for the bankruptcy implementation and at the moment we can prejudge nothing, but we will certainly do the analysis to what extent Viskoza could be used for the purposes of this multinational company “, said Petrovic.

He expressed the hope that in the near future in jadarite basin will be open jadarite mine and all associated processing plants.

AF: Jadarit is the unique boron mineral that contains lithium, and it is estimated that in the jadarite basin lies about 120 million tons of the ore. Lithium and boron are used in IT, construction and agricultural industries, for production of lithium batteries and other high-tech products.

Source; Serbia Energy