Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
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Not joined all the dots yet but I agree Techmet are the common denominator. Couple of links below. I have a few more just need to dig them out.
https://www.techmet.com/techmet-press-release-15-august-2023/
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mitra-chem-announces-new-investment-and-partnership-with-techmet-mercuria-301925160.html?tc=eml_cleartime
Interest here for cusn indirectly if CL are gaining interest and techmet are helping to pull strings.
ATB LB
And Sunak confirmed the strong anti Green beliefs of some parts of the government.
Because the UK government has no intention of funding the green transition.
I thought it was lack of money but its more than that, if you look at the Daily Telegraph, the in house paper of the Conservatives, you will a deranged hatred of green technologies.
And Paul at PRE has never mentioned US funding whereas Gerorge at RBW has repeatedly said the US gov will provide finance.
Have CL said anything? Hints?
If its US and Techmet is not going to ALK or PRE is it?
And will be techmet because they have 15 projects, they havevjust done a raise to accurate those projects and there have been other articles saying techmet is key to the US government plans to sustain the supply chain.
RBW have sites in South Africa and Brazil so that leaves Cornish Lithium in the UK...
Good afternoon LB
I think it refers to Techmet - which has invested three times in CL in which CUSN is invested. Techmet is funded in part by the US Government through the US International Development Finance Corporation, a US Government funding agency.
I think the UK project referred to may be either Pensana Rare Earths (PRE) or Alkemy's (ALK) venture through its subsidiary Tees Valley Lithium.
What interests me is how long it is going to take for Biden to recognise the UK as a trading partner for the purposes of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act). Much was made of this recognition but nothing has been announced since Sunak's visit. The US seems able to invest in (at very advantageous prices) shares in the UK's critical minerals producers, but without making the benefits of the IRA available to the UK. One benefit that accrues to these financing deals is the ability to market the product. i.e. It seems not only do they buy shares on the cheap, (and in CL's case likely transferred a lot of value from existing shareholders to Techmet and its partners) but they also obtained control over the distribution of the product. See the first Techmet deal with CL in November 2021 as an example. I quote "TechMet shall have a Right of First Offer to market lithium products from the Company’s projects" .
Interesting that this announcement is no longer on the news and announcements section of the Cornish Lithium website.
Wake up HMG! Wake up small shareholders. The resource curse has returned.
Courtesy of Smartpunter on the RBW board. I wonder if this is CL attracting attention?
ATB LB
----
US Turns to Private Investment for Minerals Projects
Minerals Security Partnership weighing up to 15 projects
US negotiating critical mineral deals with EU and UK
October 5, 2023 at 8:21 PM GMT+1
The US is working with a network of private companies to help spur investment in up to 15 global critical-minerals projects designed to create a more secure supply chain of key metals.
The consortium, which includes mining and technology firms, will act as sources of information and investment for the Minerals Security Partnership, which comprises of 14 nations including the US, UK, European Union and Japan. The countries, along with some large producing nations, will meet in London on Oct. 10 to discuss how to finance the critical mineral projects, as well as environmental concerns. The focus will be on minerals used in electric car batteries.
“We’re now looking at 15 projects on five continents, ranging from extraction to processing,” Jose Fernandez, US under secretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, said at a press briefing in London on Thursday. One of those projects may be in the UK.
“It’s a project that is very promising that we are eager to support,” he said of the UK project. “No country can do it alone.”
Encouraging private sector companies to invest is a crucial part of the partnership’s aim to funnel foreign investment into a sector that supplies the raw materials crucial to the EVs and solar panels that underpin efforts to usher in a greener economy.
The US and other nations are also focused on securing a resource supply chain that’s crucial to advanced manufacturing but remains almost totally dominated by China, which controls most of the market for processing and refining minerals such as cobalt, lithium and other rare earths.
The US signed a critical minerals agreement with Japan earlier this year which allows EVs that use materials that have been collected or processed in Japan to be eligible for incentives under the US Inflation Reduction Act, and is negotiating similar deals with the EU and UK, Fernandez said.
“We’re currently in conversations with both the EU and with the UK and those conversations are intense, they are ongoing,” he said.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-05/us-turns-to-private-investment-for-critical-mineral-projects?leadSource=uverify%20wall
Thanks for re-posting the article TF
One thing that struck me was "One leading start-up is the British firm Nexeon, a spin-out from Imperial College, London. It is building a commercial-scale plant in Korea to supply batteries for Panasonic"
Given HMG have an Automotive Transformation fund, why has Nexeon gone to Korea?
Ion batteries. These will start to appear at viable cost in 2027-2028 or shortly after. My conclusion: it is already irrelevant whether or not Britain and Europe have a petrol and diesel sale ban in 2035. The market will preempt it. If collectors want to keep buying a petrol car in the 2030s for political or nostalgia reasons, let them, so long as they are charged for the CO2 cost to society. In an ideal world, Britain should buy cheap batteries directly from China under the principle of Ricardian comparative advantage. It should focus industrial policy on hi-tech, rather than joining the European subsidy race for copy-cat gigafactories. But the world is not ideal. The local content rules of the Brexit trade deal mean that carmakers cannot sell into Europe’s EV market without tariffs unless a rising share comes from local (or EU) sources, so the UK has to join this gigafactory rat race or watch its car industry snatched away – the explicit goal of Thierry Breton, the internal market commissioner. What is striking in the Goldman Sachs report is how marginal Europe has become to the creative explosion in battery technology. It risks spending exorbitant sums trying to close the EV chasm, only to find that it is still a Chinese battery province a decade hence. Somebody should have paid more attention when America’s Tesla produced its first car in 2008 with a range of 245 miles, a top speed of 125 mph, and breathtaking acceleration. They should have paid even more attention when China and Korea ran away with the global battery trade.
But that is chiefly because production has been heavily subsidised in all kinds of ways.
National (not local) subsidies have now been cut to zero. China is moving to the next stage of price wars and ferocious cost-cutting.
The tipping point for an EV consumer takeoff is when the “payback time” from lower running costs is under three years. Goldman thinks this will happen in China by 2025. EV sales will then go parabolic, leading to 80pc penetration by 2030.
This may understate the lightning speed of the change. Li Xiang, head of Chinese carmaker Li Auto, is betting that the 80pc threshold will be reached as soon as 2025. But let us not quibble.
A clutch of new technologies are hitting the global market and will lead to a new set of winners and losers by 2026.
Chemists have long eyed silicon as a substitute for graphite in battery anodes. It can store over 10 times as much lithium and therefore has far higher energy density – for anoraks, 4,200mAh/g v 372mAh/g. It is abundant and has a lower CO2 footprint, but has been too unstable for anodes until recently.
The industry has now figured out how to harness silicon using nanotechnology. One leading start-up is the British firm Nexeon, a spin-out from Imperial College, London. It is building a commercial-scale plant in Korea to supply batteries for Panasonic, blending carbon and silicon as its secret sauce.
The company’s Karandeep Bhogal told me that this cut costs by 20pc, boosts the driving range by 20-40pc and opens the way for a flood of smaller mass-market EVs. “We can raise energy density by 50pc and reduce the battery size by a third. You need less cells, less material, less weight, less everything,” he said.
The Chinese battery maker BYD, now the top global producer of EVs by volume, has stolen a march with its new “blade” batteries. These are less likely to catch fire, charge extremely quickly and last 1.2 million kilometres on 3,000 cycles. They are already being used in some Tesla and Mercedes models.
Toyota missed the first EV wave but is betting on resurrection from its “bipolar” battery, the fruit of 20 years research. An LFP variant will come into play in 2026-2027 with a range of nearly 800 km and at a cost of $95 kWh, followed a year later with a muscular version reaching 1,400 km range at around $115 kWh.
Don't write off Toyota. Goldman Sachs has issued a share buy rating. “We see the company as one of the few automakers globally capable of constructing a vertically integrated model for electric vehicles,” said the report.
Big cylindrical batteries are coming of age too. Tesla has slashed $2,000-3,000 from the cost of its 4680 battery pack by cutting the number of cells by 80pc. All these intermediate technologies are hitting the market or will be by the middle of the decade.
This is before the larger quantum leap to solid state batteries, with double or even triple the energy density of lithium ion batt
Article in the DT today… don’t shoot the messenger.
Interesting
The world is splitting into two great battery zones with two competing chemistries. In one camp is the US-Korean industrial nexus; in the other is China, with Europe as a junior province.
The technology race will slash battery pack prices by the mid-2020s, and slash them again by the turn of the decade.
Global lithium supply will be cheap and abundant. New methods of direct lithium extraction (DLE) using resins or sorbents are already doing for lithium what shale fracking did for oil and gas, but with a twist: DLE not only doubles the yield, it also cuts land use 20-fold and greatly reduces water needs. The discovery of vast high-grade lithium deposits in Nevada points to ample global supply.
The US-Korean bloc specialises on “ternary” technology for lithium-ion batteries using nickel, cobalt and manganese, which have high energy density and decent mileage, well-adapted to the large vehicles and long distances of the US market.
This is sheltered behind the protectionist wall of the Inflation Reduction Act, which cuts the cost of batteries made in US gigafactories by $45 kWh and keeps the Chinese at bay.
It promises fat profit margins for those able to tap it under free trade deals. The Koreans will have almost 70pc of US market share by 2025, if you include joint ventures. The winners will be Samsung SDI with a potential share price gain of 74pc over the next year, or LG Chem (+63pc).
The China-Europe bloc specialises on cheaper lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries that last longer, degrade less in the heat, and don’t need cobalt from African child labour, but are 30pc less energy dense.
China’s huge overcapacity in battery manufacturing will find its way into Europe one way or another, whatever Brussels says. German carmakers are too deeply intertwined with Chinese firms to let the ideological wing of the EU impose its vision of European manufacturing sovereignty. This LFP battery zone will be a cut-throat market with shrivelling profit margins.
This is the broad conclusion of a deep dive into the battery revolution by a team of 15 analysts at Goldman Sachs. The report is for investors. It is technical and far removed from the culture war that pollutes most discussion of EVs and clean tech in the British political debate. I pass it on to readers to make their own judgement.
The greenflation scare caused by Covid and Putin is subsiding. Battery components are in surplus supply. Global battery pack prices were $153 kWh at the end of 2022. Goldman thinks they will fall to $99 by the end of 2025, and $72 by 2030.
Electric vehicles will soon undercut combustion cars on a lifecycle or “total cost of ownership” basis on pure price in most places. “We estimate that cost parity without subsidies could be achieved around mid-decade,” the Goldman analysts said.
EVs are already cheaper in China on purchase price alon
Vii - many thanks for this.
There is much to be optimistic about over the next couple of years. Short term dips in SP are good topping up opportunities
Pawgee "Does anyone know why the copper potential at United Downs does not feature in the overall CUSN MRE picture? "
A "resource" estimate involves proving the resource is there. A "reserve" not only proves its there but also proves its economic status or viability.
To prove the resource a lot of drilling is required and that is expensive to do. CUSN is focussing its efforts and capital on its most likely to be viable project South Crofty. However, UD may be next , the Wide Formation and then Dolcoath, Gwinear etc. The encouraging thing is that CUSN has so many possibilities to follow up. The graphic on the RHS of page 15 of the company presentation gives an idea of what may come about.
https://cornishmetals.com/site/assets/files/4930/cusn_october_2023_corp_ppt.pdf
The dot at 5.6m tonnes is the current resource and moves to the right will be achieved if more drilling exploration is successful.
Hannam and partners in their 30.6p valuation of the shares are only taking in 70% of the NPV of SC, and a small $35m sum for UD. Other rights areas do not seem to feature at all. With this low level of inclusion of CUSN assets the Hannam & Partners' valuation still offers huge upside potential from the current level of 11p.
Interesting article in Financial Times today.
Copper producers warn of lack of mines to meet demand for metal
--
Harry Dempsey and Euan Healy in London
--
Read the full article at:
https://on.ft.com/46nJO1s
Does anyone know why the copper potential at United Downs does not feature in the overall CUSN MRE picture?
I realise the CUSN focus is on South Crofty and the tin resource there, but given the future Copper shortages highlighted in the FT article & the seemingly high grades noted in the presentation, it would be interesting to get a feel for the potential here. Will this form part of the end 2024 feasibility study?
Good afternoon LB
Tomra sorters were not envisaged when the PEA was written.
So the ability to sort out waste and not present so much ore for processing helps to massively reduce processing costs. Also, up front capex costs will be lower as less plant will be needed. Perhaps a smaller shed. So the financing requirment for the whole project will be reduced.
And finance is probably the key hurdle. So if less finance is needed and the returns are much higher, financing will hopefully be a lot easier. All of which affects the share price as that reflects project NPV times a factor for the likelihood of the project happening at all.
The chances of VBR exercising their warrants at 27p per ordinary share have just improved.
I think that future announcements may also be helpful. The exploration drilling programme will hopefully bring good news and increase resources, extend mine life and possibly enable increased throughput, all of which will again increase the NPV, and make finance provision attractive to investors
Nice read. Thanks for sharing. I see they are getting into bed with tomra and running trials.
Did you pickup on this...
"Testwork results (from XRT and HLS) confirm the upgrading potential of
South Crofty mineralisation."
What's your take. Better yields and/or higher grades?
ATB LB
Https://cornishmetals.com/site/assets/files/4930/cusn_october_2023_corp_ppt.pdf
Meanwhile it's a good time to buy. Just do so knowing you won't see a profit for 2 years, and there is a risk of bankruptcy if funding stops. Seems unlikely but it is possible.
I appreciate the company is not get producing/selling any minerals, but they are far more nearer doing so that they were in Jan 2022 when the sp was 28p. But I take your point that when production/sales start, the current low sp will be history.
It's just because they've not started selling anything. The share price will start to rise then
Once again a positive RNS from the company, but if the last 2 such news releases are anything to go by, the sp might just drop.
I bought my shares 2.5 years ago and until the last few weeks have always been in profit.
It's annoying, but I am not concerned, as the potential for profit is overwhelmingly high, it's just that the market either does not yet see that potential, or not enough people are aware.