Environment Energy Mining Watch SEE|News|Construction of the Rio Tinto lithium mine in Serbia is planned for next year

Construction of the Rio Tinto lithium mine in Serbia is planned for next year

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At the Serbian site near Loznica, which he estimated to have about 10 percent of global lithium reserves and is among the largest in the world, the Rio Tinto Corporation announced that construction of an underground mine and processing for the exploitation of lithium from the mineral jadarite should begin next year. The General Director of Rio Sava Exploration, works of Rio Tinto, Vesna Prodanović, pointed out that the “Jadar” project is of strategic importance for Serbia and that 450 million dollars have been invested in it so far.

“About 1.5 billion euros will be invested during the construction. A project of this size will attract a large part of the construction industry, the process industry of Serbia. We will employ about 2,100 workers, who will have good, safe working conditions. We are working to improve the supply chain for this project, “says Prodanovic.

Rio Tint is aware that due to the opening of the mine, there is great resistance from citizens who are concerned about preserving the environment in the vicinity of the site where people live mostly from agriculture, but they point out that everything will be done in accordance with Serbian regulations and Serbian and EU standards. areas.

“What we have in Serbia does not exist anywhere in the world and it is not right to compare the extraction of lithium of our rock material with the method of extraction in Australia from surface mines, because this is another procedure. We have been developing the process for fifteen years, working diligently to patent such a process that takes place at lower temperatures, with lower, optimized amounts of acids. There is a great use of reagents during this production, but each of them is used in a safe way. There is an impact on water. We will take water from the vicinity of the Drina, in a closed cycle, and purify it. There are also measures for the protection of watercourses, from dust and noise “, explains Prodanović.

The state leadership of Serbia does not want lithium to be exported as a raw material and hopes that the opening of the mine, which is expected to be exploited for 50 years, could attract producers of electric batteries, and the wish is to build a Chinese electric bus factory to repeat the business story with Zelezara Smederevo which was taken over by the Chinese.

Source: naslovi.net

 

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