The mining company Rio Tinto said on Wednesday it respected a decision by the Serbian government to suspend acts for implementation of a lithium mining project and noted that it was now working on completing an internal feasibility study.

In a statement, issued in response to allegations by the SEOS association that Rio Tinto and Bechtel were continuing to carry out the Jadar Project, Rio Tinto said it was operating in keeping with Serbian legislation and that all of its current activities were a follow-up to commitments made earlier.

This includes completing an internal feasibility study, for which we need to gather all project data from relevant companies to ensure the feasibility study is in line with technical and environmental protection standards, Rio Tinto said.

The company added that the feasibility study was being developed in collaboration with Bechtel, with which it has had a project management agreement since 2018.