(Reuters) – Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is preparing to give Rio Tinto the green light to develop Europe’s biggest lithium mine, two years after Belgrade canceled the project, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Vucic told the newspaper that “new guarantees” from the global mining giant and the European Union would allay Serbia’s concerns about compliance with necessary environmental standards at the Jadar site in the west of the country.
Rio Tinto said in an emailed statement to Reuters: “We believe the Jadar project has the potential to become a world-class asset that could act as a catalyst for the development of an EV (electric vehicle) value chain in Serbia.”
Lithium is considered a critical raw material by the EU and the USA and is used in batteries for electric vehicles and mobile devices.
“If we deliver everything, (the mine) could open in 2028,” Vucic told the FT, adding that the mine is expected to produce 58,000 tonnes of lithium per year, which is “enough for 17% of electric car production in Europe – about 1.1 million cars”.
In 2022, Belgrade revoked the licenses for Rio’s $2.4 billion Jadar project following massive environmental protests. Once completed, the project could meet 90% of Europe’s current lithium demand and help make the company a leading lithium producer.
In 2021 and 2022, Serbian environmental activists collected 30,000 signatures on a petition calling on parliament to pass laws to stop lithium exploration in the country.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard and Hugh Lawson)
