Suspended lithium explorer AVZ Minerals faces a potential hammer blow after the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining minister ordered the revocation of an April 2022 decree that granted AVZ’s operating partner, Dathcom, a mining licence for its Manono lithium project.

The explorer – which boasted about its ownership of the world’s richest lithium deposit – last traded on a sharemarket value around $2.7 billion when it requested a trading halt on May 9, 2022, related to its mining and exploration rights for the Manono Project.