MINEX Forum

Tag: UK Infrastructure Bank

  • Cornish Lithium raises $6.2m to keep UK project alive

    Cornish Lithium raises $6.2m to keep UK project alive

    British start-up Cornish Lithium has successfully raised £5.1 million, or approximately $6.2 million, through an impressive crowdfunding campaign. This campaign stands out as one of the largest of its kind carried out in the UK this year. In fact, it holds the distinction of being the largest campaign by a B2B business on Crowdcube in 2023. Existing shareholders were given priority access to the financing round with Crowdcube, resulting in a remarkable investment of £1 million, or $1.2 million, in just 27 minutes.

    The crowdfunding initiative, launched in early September, aimed to provide both existing shareholders of Cornish Lithium and new retail shareholders the opportunity to invest alongside the £67 million, or $82 million, granted by the UK Infrastructure Bank, the Energy and Minerals Group, and TechMet. With this comprehensive investment package, as well as the funds raised through the crowdfunding campaign, Cornish Lithium will be able to advance its Trelavour project, which focuses on extracting lithium from hard rock in Cornwall, southwest England. The project’s objective is to produce approximately 8,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

    The Trelavour hard rock lithium project comprises an open pit mine of lithium-enriched granite and associated processing facilities that will yield a concentrate of lithium-bearing mica. The mica concentrate will then be used to produce lithium hydroxide at an industrial site near the mine. According to a scoping study supported by the UK’s Automotive Transformation Fund and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, the Trelavour mine is projected to produce 25 million tonnes per annum. With an estimated operational life of 20 years, the mine aims to generate an average of 7,800 tonnes of lithium hydroxide annually.

    Cornish Lithium had initially targeted commencing production by 2026, which would have strategically positioned the company to take advantage of the European Union’s ongoing efforts to rebuild its automotive supply chains around battery metals and promote the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. It is worth noting that another company, British Lithium, has also set its sights on Cornwall for its battery metals ambitions. In collaboration with France’s Imerys, British Lithium plans to establish a mine capable of producing enough lithium to power 500,000 electric vehicles annually by the end of the decade.

    Currently, the UK relies on lithium imports from leading global producers, namely Australia and Chile, as it does not possess any domestic lithium operations. Recognizing the need for a secure and sustainable domestic supply of lithium, Cornish Lithium and other companies are actively working towards filling this gap in the market. Furthermore, with the European Commission’s ambitious plans to construct large-scale battery plants that will support the production of cells for at least six million electric vehicles by 2025, British carmakers face mounting pressure. The UK government has made a commitment to cease the sale of new diesel and gasoline vehicles by 2035, further emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable alternatives such as electric vehicles.

  • Cornish Lithium secures £53.6m to open first mine for the metal in Britain

    Cornish Lithium secures £53.6m to open first mine for the metal in Britain

    The startup opening Britain’s first lithium mine in Cornwall has secured $67m (£53.6m) of investment led by the UK Infrastructure Bank, in a much-needed boost to efforts to extract the metal that is used for making vehicle batteries.

    Cornish Lithium is to receive the funds from the Treasury-funded bank and other investors as part of a larger funding package of up to $210m (£168m).

    The funding package is expected to speed up progress towards British mining of battery-grade lithium compounds, which are key to production of batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.

    The investment is part of a push to boost financing for climate crisis-related infrastructure projects, and to create a hub for supplies of lithium to Europe from Cornwall.

    The initial investment is led by the UKIB alongside the Energy & Minerals Group (EMG), a US private investment firm focused on energy and minerals, and TechMet, which invests in clean energy and electric vehicle technologies and counts the US government’s development finance corporation among its backers.

    The UKIB and EMG will each put in £24m while TechMet, Cornish Lithium’s largest shareholder, is investing a further £5.6m, bringing its total investment in the business to £30m.

    Core samples from Cornish Lithium’s exploratory drilling at its research site, August 2022.
    Core samples from Cornish Lithium’s exploratory drilling at its research site, August 2022. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The Guardian

    Cornish Lithium aims to increase its 70-strong workforce to more than 300 people once it is in commercial production. It had warned in its annual accounts in June that there would be material uncertainty over its future if it did not raise bridge funding by July to buy it time before its next fundraising round. The company plans to raise a further £6.9m by selling shares to small shareholders through Crowdcube, with a focus on existing investors.

    Lithium is a vital ingredient in the current generation of batteries used in portable devices ranging from mobile phones to electric toothbrushes. But vastly more lithium will be needed for electric vehicles as combustion engines are phased out around the world.

    Cornish Lithium is one of several projects that seek to revive Cornwall’s 4,000-year-old mining heritage. Another company, British Lithium, has teamed with the French mining firm Imerys to start a mine in Cornwall and to extract enough lithium to power 500,000 electric cars a year by the end of the decade.

    Jeremy Wrathall, founder and chief executive of Cornish Lithium, said it was “essential to secure funding from institutional investors with the financial muscle to bring our projects into commercial production”.

    He said the funds would enable the company to advance its project at Trelavour, near St Austell, to “construction-ready status” and allow it to “complete the engineering design work required to build a demonstration-scale geothermal waters extraction facility”.

    John Flint, chief executive of the UKIB, said: “Globally the supply of lithium is far outpaced by demand, and yet in the UK it remains a nascent market.”

    He said the investment would “greatly accelerate domestic production of a mineral which is critical to the future of electric vehicle battery production and decarbonisation of the transport sector”.

    Andrew Griffith, economic secretary to the Treasury, who visited Cornish Lithium on Tuesday, said the investment would improve the domestic supply of lithium, helping “the UK’s transition towards net zero whilst also boosting local and regional economic growth”.

    Kemi Badenoch, business and trade secretary, said that, coupled with Tata Group’s recent pledge to build a £4bn electric car battery gigafactory in Somerset last month, the investment would ensure the UK automotive sector is “well set for the future”.