Savannah Resources faces legal opposition to developing a higher-grade lithium supply chain in Europe’s biggest lithium-producing country.
Community activists in a lithium-rich area of northern Portugal have filed a lawsuit against a subsidiary of London-based mining company Savannah Resources for alleged encroachment on communal land, according to a Reuters report.
Savannah Resources wants to develop Portugal’s 60,000 tonnes of known lithium reserves (which are sold almost exclusively to the ceramics industry) for use in EVs and electronic devices.
Projects, such as Savannah’s, face strong opposition from environmentalists and local communities who are demanding stronger regulation and more transparency.
In a statement, the community group Local Community of Common Land of Covas do Barroso, accused Savannah Resources‘ subsidiary Savannah Lithium of “improper appropriation” of land assigned to the community for farming or hunting.
The land is near Savanna’s Mina do Barroso project 145 km northeast of the city of Porto.
Much of the land in Portugal thought to contain lithium is classified as common land and its use is determined by associations in that area.
The Barroso community group claims Savannah Lithium, which already mines feldspar, quartz, and pegmatite broke the law by buying land based on surveys that “in no way correspond to well-known (common land) limits established generations ago”.
It called for purchases to be cancelled.