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Serbia seen to supply 10pc of world's lithium batteries: Rio Tinto

SERBIA, seldom a source of good fortune, now appears to be on the brink of commanding 10 per cent of the world's lithium market - the stuff that powers the batteries that power the world's mobile phones, Bloomberg reports.

"There has been a number of breakthroughs," said mining giant Rio Tinto's uranium-borates chief Simon Trott.

"We're now producing lithium carbonate that's to a specification that we are very confident will meet customer requirements," he told reporters in Melbourne where Serbian ore was tested.

Jadar, 140 kilometres (87 miles) west of Belgrade, has one of the world's biggest lithium deposits and the mine would be one of top three sources of lithium worldwide, said Mr Trott.

Today, the world's biggest mining companies are looking to exploit the burgeoning battery market in cracking the technology needed to unlock Serbia's giant lithium potential.

Tests at a research facility in a converted shipping container in Australia have successfully produced lithium products from samples from the Jadar deposit, the company said.

It's aiming to bring the mine in Serbia into production as soon as 2023 to tap soaring demand for the metal used in batteries for electric vehicles and power storage.

Rio Tinto joins its largest competitors BHP Billiton and Glencore in preparing to meet rising demand for the metals needed to make the batteries.

Electric cars are forecast to outsell gasoline and diesel models by 2040 as the cost of lithium-ion battery units that store power for the vehicles is slashed, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. By then, the electric fleet could total about 530 million plug-in cars, a third of the global total.