The country has “extremely strict” standards for issuing permits for prospecting for minerals, it said, so companies and individuals that do this without a permit risk being detained.

Authorities noted significant environmental risks uncovered during the probe, in particular affecting the Yangtze River

Chief executive will leave her position once a successor is found but the company did not provide a timeframe for the transition

The resource-poor country relies on a single hydroelectric plant and has gone into winter with the worst drought in more than a decade

The original underground mining team has been commissioned to map and sample the ore to better understand potential extensions

The price increases are among the first signals that the new Omicron variant could cause supply-side pressures and commodity price rises

Tsingshan and fellow Chinese firm Chengxin Lithium Group will produce 60,000 tonnes per year of lithium chemicals at a processing facility in Indonesia

Limited supply of lithium and cobalt - the key constituents of a Li-ion battery - is also behind the global hunt for a replacement, which may become ready by 2030

Some analysts fear the jump in prices of lithium, a key constituent of batteries that drive electric vehicles, could cool people’s adoption of electric vehicles

China accounts for 57% of global supply of the metal and previously exported 5-6 million tonnes annually

Tata-owned facility is one of the UK’s top carbon polluters and will need to find ways to make steel with less carbon dioxide output

The mineral is highly sought-after and a key component in lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and battery storage systems