(Yicai Global) April 21 -- Shares of Australia’s Essential Metals slumped after its shareholders rejected a AUD136 million (USD91 million) takeover offer from Tianqi Lithium, China's biggest miner of the metal.

Essential Metals [ASX: ESS] closed down 8 percent at 46 Australian cents (31 US cents) in Sydney today, paring its gain so far this year to 39 percent.

Tianqi Lithium’s proposal to buy all of Essential Metals failed secure approval at a special meeting of shareholders yesterday as the number of votes cast in favor of the deal fell short of the 75 percent needed, the Perth-based company announced on the same day.

Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia, a unit of the Chinese miner, had proposed to pay 50 Australian cents a share for Essential Metals in a deal signed on Jan. 8.

The rejected offer will not have an adverse impact on Tianqi Lithium's supply of lithium concentrate nor its lithium salts processing capacity, the Chengdu-based company said late yesterday. Tianqi Lithium still owns Greenbushes, the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine located in Australia, through its unit, it added.

Shares of Tianqi Lithium [SHE: 002466] fell 1 percent to end at CNY79.19 (USD11.50) apiece in Shenzhen today, while in Hong Kong the firm’s stock [HKG: 9696] finished unchanged at HKD54.95 (USD7).

Essential Metals has 11.2 million tons of lithium resources, with an average lithium oxide content of about 1.2 percent and an optimistic estimate of about 790 tons of resources available, according to a company report. It owns the Pioneer Dome lithium project.

The price of lithium salts surged last year, with that of battery-grade lithium carbonate hitting a record high of CNY590,000 (USD85,695) per ton last November. But since January, prices have started to come down, with lithium carbonate averaging CNY210,000 a ton today.

Big changes in the price of lithium salts affect the market valuation of lithium ore-related assets and the business performance of their operators.

Editor: Futura Costaglione