Credit: Neale Cousland via Shutterstock 

The Australian Government has blocked the takeover of a lithium miner by a company with links to China. Treasurer Jim Chalmers issued a prohibition stopping Austroid Corporation from acquiring an additional 90.1% stake in lithium miner Alita Resources, which would have made it a full owner of the enterprise. Mike Que, director of Austroid, is the son of Que Wenbin, who has a major interest in Chinese lithium battery maker Sichuan Western Resource.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government and a delegation of officials from the United Arab Emirates have agreed to develop several mines in eastern Congo. The deal is worth upwards of $1.9bn, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi’s office said in a statement, and “will make it possible to set up more than four mines”.

A subsidiary of Chinese mining company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt has commissioned a $300m lithium processing facility in Zimbabwe. Located in Goromonzi, approximately 80km south-east of Harare, the lithium concentrator is equipped to process 4.5 million metric tonnes of hard rock lithium into concentrate for export per year. 

Red Mountain Mining has signed an agreement to earn an 80% stake in the prospective Monjebup Rare Earth Project in southern Western Australia from LBM (Aust), a subsidiary of Liontown Resources. Located around 80km north-east of Albany, the project comprises of three large exploration licences, covering 910km².