The need for lithium is also expected to grow ahead of a ban on vehicles using petrol and diesel from 2030
A miner that plans to produce enough lithium to help fuel the UK’s electric car boom hopes to raise up to £40m next year to advance its plans.
Cornish Lithium expects to raise the money from investment funds and carmakers amid growing demand for the material. Britain is trying to reduce its reliance on imports of the rare metal from China.
The need for lithium is also expected to grow ahead of a ban on vehicles using petrol and diesel from 2030.
Cornish Lithium secured £18m from leading metals investor TechMet last year, but will need more funding to continue its work testing and preparing its approach.
Chief executive Jeremy Wrathall, said: We still have a large proportion of that (TechMet) money in the bank, but it will be used up over the building of the demonstration plant in Trelavour and feasibility studies.
So we will be raising additional finance in 2023. It will be targeted at raising from various funds who’ve approached us and potentially the automotive sector who are increasingly desperate for this material, Wrathall said.
We want to raise between £20-40m: the larger figure would take us right through to a construction decision, Wrathall said.
Cornish Lithium is planning to produce lithium both from rock, at Trelavour Downs near St Dennis, and from geothermal waters in Cornwall.
It expects to start production at Trelavour in 2026, ramping up to produce 8-10,000 tonnes per year of lithium hydroxide. It could start producing from geothermal waters as soon as 2024.
Ultimately, it aims to set up a network of small, ‘modular’ geothermal production sites around Cornwall, each producing about 500 to 1,000 tonnes per year.
It is estimated the rock mining site will cost around $244m (£214m) to build. It is still working on budgets for the geothermal sites, but Wrathall estimates each could cost ‘in the order of $30m’.
As well as the TechMet investment, the company has raised millions of pounds from thousands of retail investors, many of whom live locally in Cornwall.
The company plans to one day list in the UK, but decided not to do so this year amid market turbulence.
