That would be a very positive for investor confidence in lithium...

That would be a very positive for investor confidence in lithium market if RIO went ahead with this project:https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/dday-for-rio-on-lithium-project/news-story/56b910002d5f08108ca1de9d2c09f523

D-Day for Rio on lithium project

• Perry Williams

  Senior Business Writer

  
• 12:00AM March 11, 2019
• No Comments

Rio Tinto is nearing an investment decision on the feasibility phase for its big Jadar lithium and boron deposit in Serbia as it weighs an ambitious push into the battery materials market with first production slated for 2023.

The mining giant has already spent in excess of $US100 million ($141m) on the project with up to 200 of its staff working on delivering a pre-feasibility study to company bosses in the next few months.

An investment committee will then be asked to consider moving the development into a feasibility stage. A final investment decision is due in 2020 with the green light spurring the development into a construction phase with first output from Jadar — a potential top-three global lithium producer — three to four years later.

Jadarite is a unique mineral, containing lithium and boron, that Rio discovered in 2004 with the Jadar deposit.

Rio says the project has enough lithium to supply more than 10 per cent of global demand with the company’s small-scale pilot plant in Melbourne’s Bundoora developing new technology to develop lithium carbonate and boric acid from the ore.

“We remain excited by the opportunity. Jadar is a very large resource and it’s one of these ones that has the potential to underpin a business for 50 to 100 years and it has the sort of size and scale of potential that is of interest to Rio Tinto,” Rio’s head of growth and innovation, Stephen McIntosh, said at a briefing late last week.

“Obviously lithium itself is something we as an organisation will have to make a decision on. We’ll be running the project to the investment committee and that moment in time is getting close.”

Under current plans Jadar will be an underground mine, with the opportunity for future expansion if demand warrants it.

Borates are building blocks for products including fibreglass, glass, ceramics, fertilisers, detergents, and wood preservatives

With Rio opening the Amrun bauxite mine last week in Queensland’s Cape York, investors are again looking at what growth options the company has on the table beyond its Pilbara iron ore assets.

The Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine in Mongolia has been delayed and faces a potential budget blowout, putting the spotlight on Jadar as an attractive development option which gives Rio exposure to a new commodity.

Mr McIntosh said market doubts over the project had largely dissipated and it was now whether the huge deposit ticked the boxes in terms of Rio’s investment criteria.

“Obviously because it’s a new mineral we need to work out how to process it,” Mr McIntosh said on the sidelines of Rio’s opening of its Amrun mine on Thursday. “There has been a little bit of scepticism in the market around our ability to process it. We are no longer sceptical on that front. Now it’s the investment case and does it really make sense?”

Jadar is expected to produce about 50,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent with the deposit holding about 136 million tonnes of resources.

The reporter travelled to Queensland as a guest of Rio Tinto.