Already next year, lithium mining was to start in the north of Bohemia near Cínovce. Instead, however, soft metal may once once more become a pre-election topic.
Originally, ČEZ was supposed to make a decision on mining last year, but that did not happen. Instead, the energy giant kept moving the deadline, and it was supposed to be clearer this summer.
But as Forbes found out, the decision on mining is being postponed once more – mainly due to a change in location for the processing plant, which is to be located in Újezdeček near Teplice, in close proximity to the Prunéřov lignite power plant. And it is therefore necessary to revise the final feasibility study, which will decide on the profitability of mining.
“Due to the change of location, it will be necessary to rework the final feasibility study, which will take many months,” says Roman Gazdík from the ČEZ group, which controls 51 percent of the company Geomet, which owns an exploration license to mine lithium from Tinovec.
“At the same time, the project needs to progress within the framework of the permit procedures, for example updating the principles of territorial development,” he added, without further details, when the decision on mining might be made.
However, the deadline fell at the June general meeting of ČEZ. “At the general meeting, it was announced that CEZ’s decision is being postponed until the middle of 2025,” ČEZ minority shareholder Michal Šnobr said on the X social network.
It is therefore obvious that mining will not start in 2025. And instead of taking pictures next to the first truck with rock leaving the Cínové mine, the politicians will rather argue in the run-up to the elections whether lithium mining in the Czech Republic is even worthwhile and whether it makes sense to go into it.
This is exactly what the aforementioned – and once more revised – feasibility study should decide. Question marks also hang over the economic viability of mining due to the need to build a new processing chemical plant where lithium would be extracted from the mined tailings. A blind spot is also the specific method that would receive the lithium usable for the production of batteries for electric cars from the mineral cinvaldite.
About three to four percent of the world’s known lithium reserves are located in Cínovec, and up to two million tons of rock might be mined here annually. The most heated debates regarding mining took place at the turn of the decade, when the price of lithium was soaring. At the turn of 2022 and 2023, however, it began to decline sharply.
Development of the price of lithium carbonate in yuan per ton | Source: Trading Economics
Other interested parties in obtaining lithium in the Czech Republic have been waiting for the results of the feasibility study for years, including the Cínovecká landfill from billionaire Karel Janeček’s RSJ group. She wants to overload the lithic sands in the north.
Geomet, owned 51 percent by ČEZ and 49 percent by the Australian company European Metal Holding, nevertheless over the years started preparations for mining near Cínovce and began discussing it with the municipalities in the vicinity, where a processing plant was also to be built on the Dukla brownfield.
Even following the protests of the inhabitants of the villages, who are afraid of the significant negative effects of mining on their lives, it will probably be built on ČEZ land next to the Prunéřov power plant fifty kilometers away, where one coal block is shut down and where the rock should be brought by rail.
Nevertheless, a year ago, i.e. even before the proposal to change the location of the plant, Geomet bought land in Dukla worth almost a billion crowns with the intention of building a processing plant there.
“Dukla was a good option for us because it is an industrial zone near the mine. We have therefore prepared all the documents for the permitting processes precisely for the concept of the construction of the plant in Dukla. For that purpose, it was necessary to secure land in time, which is a common procedure,” states ČEZ spokesman Roman Gazdík.
When asked by Forbes whether the investment will now go to waste, he answers that Geomet, with one exception, did not buy the land, but contractually secured the option and paid the reservation fee.
“The price for the reservation corresponded to the usual price for such a large industrial zone. We still count on Dukla as a station for transporting material to the plant in Prunéřov, so we will use the land,” he concludes.
