Rio Tinto has placed its Jadar lithium project in Serbia on care and maintenance as part of chief executive officer Simon Trott’s strategy to streamline operations and focus capital on higher-priority assets.
The move, as reported by the Australian Financial Review, follows regulatory delays and strong community opposition in Serbia. Jadar, discovered in 2004, was once slated for a $3.7 billion ($US2.4 billion) investment.
“One of the really good things about having options, and we’ve got lots of options in the lithium space, is that the bar is really high, and so we can look at those projects and progress the very best of them,” Trott said at a Goldman Sachs event in London last month.
Despite the decision on Jadar, Rio has indicated it remains committed to building a world-class lithium business, with its $US7.6 billion Arcadium Lithium acquisition “progressing to plan” and expanding its footprint across key brine and hard-rock jurisdictions.
Through the acquisition, Rio now owns the Mt Cattlin mine in Western Australia. In September 2024, Arcadium Lithium announced it would place the mine into care and maintenance following softer lithium prices, while keeping it ready to potentially resume operations when market conditions improve.
In Argentina, Rio’s Rincon lithium project has completed final testing of its 3,000 tonne per annum (tpa) starter plant, with a 57,000 tpa expansion expected to start in the third quarter, pending permits. Once fully operational, Rincon will produce 60,000 tpa of battery-grade lithium carbonate for 40 years at first-quartile costs.
Last week, Rio awarded Australian company Clean TeQ Water a $19.2 million contract to deliver a lithium concentrate softening plant using its proprietary CLEAN-IX Moving Bed Ion Exchange (MBIX) technology, one of the largest contracts in Clean TeQ’s history.
Analysis by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence in May this year said Rio Tinto is on track to become the world’s second-largest lithium miner by 2035, sitting only behind Albemarle and just above Pilbara Minerals (PLS).
Rio’s partnership with Chilean state-owned miner Codelco marks another bold step into lithium, with investment up to $1.4 billion ($US900 million) to develop the Salar de Maricunga lithium project.
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