Rio Tinto has committed $2.4bn to take its Jadar lithium project in Serbia to full production of 58,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate by 2029, as it targets entry into the lithium market and the energy storage revolution.
One of the world’s biggest miners and commodity players will evolve into a chemical producer to make battery grade lithium carbonate from an entirely new mineral source, jadarite, for which it will build an underground mine.
It will also produce nearly three times as much boron and five times as much sodium as part of the process.
Rio Tinto expects . . .