Mining company Rio Tinto has postponed its lithium exploitation project in the Jadar River Valley in western Serbia, Bloomberg reports today, citing internal documents from the Australian company.
Bloomberg has seen a memorandum sent this week stating that the Jadar project will be placed in "care and maintenance" (conserved) status.
"Given the lack of progress with permits, we are not in a position to maintain the same level of cost and resource allocations," the memorandum reads.
A spokesman for the concern confirmed the contents of the memorandum but declined to comment further.
Rio Tinto's move comes as the new CEO wants to focus on simplifying the expanding company and cutting costs.
Bloomberg reports that the project in the Jadar River Valley has been facing problems for years and that the area, on the one hand, has rich reserves of lithium and borates, but on the other hand, the local community strongly opposes the project, which has become the subject of major political protests.
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