By Amy Lv and Lewis Jackson
BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese miner Zangge Mining said on Thursday it had halted lithium production at a unit in Qinghai province on orders from local officials, sending lithium prices up more than 4% in afternoon trading.
The miner, controlled by state-owned giant Zijin Mining, received a notice from Haixi prefecture officials on Wednesday ordering an immediate halt to non-compliant mining, according to a Shenzhen exchange filing.
The filing did not say how the mining was non-compliant.
Production, which was forecast to hit 11,000 tons of lithium carbonate this year, can only resume with local government approval.
Zangge said it plans to make its mining compliant and submit an application.
“Since it is not yet possible to determine the specific time of Zangge Lithium’s resumption of production, the impact on the company cannot be predicted for the time being,” it said in a statement.
The most active lithium carbonate futures contract on the Guangzhou futures exchange jumped more than 4% when afternoon trading began at 1.30 p.m.
(0550 GMT).
Zangge said it expected the shutdown to have only a limited impact on its results. Output at the mine is expected to hit 5,350 metric tons in the first half, it added.
(Reporting by Lewis Jackson and Amy Lv in Beijing; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Kate Mayberry)
