Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Cornish Lithium is featuring on BBC 1 Countryfile today at 6pm, highlighting the United Downs and Twelvetrees geothermal lithium brine projects. Good for CUSN that CL is gaining mainstream media traction, as they have very beneficial royalty agreements in place for future revenues.
CL’s IPO was pulled at the end of 2022 due to unfavourable market environment, but as FTSE now at all time high, hope it is back on. This will establish value of CUSN’s royalties/ shareholding
Thanks to all for great posts over last few months
Part 2 of 2
“China saw it coming. Everybody else was asleep; everyone else has now woken up. This is the most exciting time for me to possibly be alive. We are part of that energy transition. It’s exciting and challenging.”
Part 1 of 2 - Article in Daily Telegraph. CUSN has royalties in brine extraction & share holding in CL
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, founded in 2016, 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 – a crucial component of the batteries used in electric cars – 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.
“We want to raise between £20-40m: the larger figure would take us right through to a construction decision.”
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 Mr Wrathall estimates each could cost “in the order of $30m”.
Mr Wrathall quit his job as a mining analyst at Investec in 2016 to look for lithium in Cornwall and set up the company.
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.
“Capital markets remain very, very uncertain,” Mr Wrathall said. “So if you've got people knocking on our door who want to give us money, like [carmakers] or big funds, that seems the best way forward. Then we can create more value ready for the IPO.”
He said he would not rule out a listing next year if the markets improve. He is also not ruling out further crowdfunding next year but “it doesn’t look that way at the moment”.
Lithium prices have surged since 2021 amid rising demand for electric vehicles. “This is the mega trend of our time
CUSN has royalties in CL, so this partnership could help brine extraction process . Text from Business Manchester article below.
Manchester based Watercycle Technologies Ltd, a pioneering critical minerals and water filtration specialist, is delighted to announce that it has been granted a £500,000 Innovate UK Smart Grant, in partnership with Cornish Lithium Ltd, to test its ground-breaking direct lithium extraction (‘DLE’) process in Cornwall.
Watercycle’s patented filtration process can selectively extract lithium from sub-surface waters, such as those found in the Southwest of the UK. Given lithium’s essential role in battery technologies, the ability to obtain it from waters cost effectively and establish a domestic supply of the mineral is vital for the UK’s Net-Zero strategy.
Under the terms of the agreement, Watercycle will deliver a containerised filtration system to extract lithium from Cornish Lithium’s project in Cornwall at a pilot scale. The project, which includes an environmental impact assessment, is anticipated to complete in October 2023.
Watercycle CEO Dr Seb Leaper said, “Having already proven that our proprietary filtration membranes and systems work in lab conditions, we are excited to be working with Cornish Lithium to demonstrate their scalability and accelerate the creation of a resilient, domestic lithium supply chain in the UK. This agreement marks the next step in our development strategy as we look at the commercialisation of our technology, which is capable of treating a wide range of water types and can deliver dramatic reductions in costs, carbon emissions and water consumption compared with current processes.”
Watercycle co-founder and CTO Dr Ahmed Abdelkarim added, “It is great to be working with like-minded partners, Cornish Lithium and Innovate UK, which, like us, are focused on making a positive impact on the global transition through advancing innovative technologies. Lithium is a critical element with EV demand set to grow 418% from 468 GWh this year to 2.4 TWh by 2030 and we are delighted to be part of that chain, offering a British solution to the challenge of primary lithium production, which is the first link within the wider EV supply chain.”
Lead Geochemist Dr Rebecca Paisley at Cornish Lithium said, “Cornish Lithium is keen to support projects from UK-based universities, and the companies commercialising them, which we believe have the potential to be both game changing and contribute to the UK’s Net Zero strategy. Working with Watercycle in the development of a pilot system aligns strongly with our Research and Innovation strategy, as well as our continued efforts to trial multiple DLE technologies at pilot scale in Cornwall to establish the most effective and responsible process flow sheet. We have a good relationship with the Watercycle team and look forward to progressing the project over the next 12 months.”
Vii
Your reading is exactly what happened. Received confirmation that the options were exercised and then sold to cover cost & associated tax payment. General market sentiment weighing down mining sector, so rubbing off on CUSN. Good buying opportunity before further updates.
Imho, don’t share that opinion, as CUSN well cashed up to reach its next milestone. A good buying opportunity & have again topped up.
Again, imho, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for CUSN to issue a statement on background behind the sale & I will email them to get some background reasoning.
Cornish Lithium is experimenting with different chemical methods of extracting the lithium once the water is drawn to the surface – and it is also looking at how to sell the geothermal heat to nearby industry and even housing projects.
There is little prospect for manufacturers in the UK and Europe of not being reliant on major overseas suppliers, given the imperative to churn out battery vehicles to replace polluting internal combustion engines. UK and European mining projects will probably be marginal players, said Caspar Rawles, the chief data officer at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a data company.
“The UK and Europe as a continent have relatively limited scope to be self-sufficient on a regional basis,” he said. Resources that are available will typically be higher-cost, and UK and EU policymakers have so far not shown much interest in encouraging battery materials processing.
“Chinese domination across the supply chain is a major concern,” said Rawles.
There’s loads of lithium out there, but it’s getting it into a usable form that’s the problem
Neil Elliot of Cornish Lithium
Either way, Benchmark and some other analysts including those at investment bank Evercore ISI believe a lithium shortfall is likely to remain over the next few years – although Goldman Sachs ruffled feathers earlier this year with a prediction that the market could become oversupplied, pushing prices down.
“There is a misconception that there’s loads of lithium out there, so it’s not going to be a problem,” said Cornish Lithium’s Elliot. “Yes, there’s loads of lithium out there, but it’s getting it into a usable form that’s the problem.”
Lithium carbonate spot prices have soared from less than 100,000 Chinese yuan (£12,200) a tonne as recently as August 2021 to more than 500,000 yuan by October, according to Refinitiv.
Redruth and nearby Camborne, home to the School of Mines, contain some of the most deprived wards in Britain. A statue of a miner looming over Redruth’s quiet high street symbolises what has been lost since its mining heyday – and perhaps what could be gained, even if the UK remains a marginal player.
There has been some local opposition to mining projects in Cornwall, but Kim Conchie, the chief executive of the Cornwall Chamber of Commerce, suggested the area’s long history of mining meant residents may be more open to new projects, even if they do not deliver thousands of jobs as in the past.
“Places like Redruth have lost their mojo since the mines closed down,” Conchie said. “We’re pretty optimistic that this could be the cusp of another golden era for Cornwall.”
A UK battery industry will probably always be dependent on supplies from abroad. However, miners in the UK are hopeful that soaring demand for electric cars, each with a few kilograms of battery metals, will sustain prices at a profitable level for their smaller, and therefore less cost-effective, mines.
A few miles away from Trelavour, the South Crofty headframe looms over the village of Pool. Here Cornish Metals is hoping to reopen the tin mine, which was abandoned in 1998. The tin will be used in solder in electronics ranging from electric cars to solar panels. However, the mine is still four years away from production.
Richard Williams, Cornish Metals’ chief executive, said the boom in electric cars and personal devices during the pandemic had been a gamechanger for metal companies. It meant projects in the UK could be financially viable, as long as local communities accept new mines.
“People have to bridge the gap between nimbyism and the fact that everybody wants a new electric car and new tech,” Williams said, adding that the mine could create another 300 jobs.
Cornish Lithium is pursuing tandem efforts in its search for profits: reopening a disused china clay quarry to mine overlooked lithium, and extracting lithium from geothermal brine – heated by naturally occurring radioactivity in granite.
At the geothermal site, Richard Thompson, the project manager for Cornish Lithium, points to “our underwhelming borehole”. Looks can be deceiving: the plate-sized hole stretches down more than 800 metres. The borehole is drilled deep into the granite to draw out ancient underground reservoirs of brine containing dissolved lithium salts. The locations were chosen in part thanks to incredibly detailed Victorian maps of previous mines which noted the waters were “rich in lithia”.
A foggy, overgrown quarry in a quiet part of Cornwall is a good place to contemplate Britain’s industrial past. It is here that miners used steam power, explosives and their own hands to dig out china clay for ceramics. The industry helped to fuel the Industrial Revolution and briefly made Redruth one of the richest places in the UK.
The quarry is also a pretty good place to contemplate Britain’s industrial future. Cornish Lithium, a UK startup, is one of a clutch of businesses hoping to revive British mining amid a global scramble for the battery minerals that are crucial for the transition away from fossil fuels.
The shift to electric cars is upending the automotive industry. It has also set off a scramble for the minerals that will be used in every vehicle. This article, the second in Electric Dreams, a series exploring the UK’s efforts to save its car industry by building an automotive battery industry, will examine how mining companies are hoping to provide the first stage of the supply chain: the minerals that will be crucial to every car battery.
There are already battery factories under way in the UK, with Chinese company Envision in Sunderland and under-pressure startup Britishvolt in Northumberland both starting building work. The batteries and electric cars they make will need steady supplies of high-grade minerals: cobalt, nickel, manganese, tin, but above all lithium.
“This is the part of Cornwall that nobody ever sees,” said Neil Elliot, Cornish Lithium’s corporate development manager, at the steep-sided Trelavour quarry, a few miles from Redruth.
The company hopes the business will start producing usable lithium by 2026, eventually moving millions of tonnes of rock and digging down 120 metres. The quarry, which has just won financial support from the UK government, would create about 300 jobs and provide an alternative to seasonal tourism work.
The lithium ion battery was only invented in the 1980s, and demand for the metal was previously limited mainly to ceramics, grease and antidepressants – although a small amount was also mined at Trelavour to control carbon dioxide levels in the UK’s nuclear submarines. The huge expansion of the battery industry has changed that.
Many battery materials are mined in big, sparsely populated commodity exporters with resources such as Australia’s spodumene lithium rocks, Chile’s brine and Russia’s nickel mountain. China is also keen to tap its lithium deposits.
The challenges vary from mineral to mineral. Campaigners have reported persistent environmental concerns around nickel mining in Indonesia and Russia. The largest cobalt deposits are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where artisanal and small-scale mining can be open to abuses such as child labour.
Cornish Lithium puts float on hold amid tough conditions
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/da852910-48b1-11ed-8b55-aaf85c581598?shareToken=e8888b871aa1aa915b3f66287114e0a6
Article in Times confirm CL IPO pulled until next year
That is true, but CUSN holds over 6 million shares in CL. Another interesting dynamic is the Sulphate of Potash by product, which is a very rich fertiliser. It’s cost is about £400-500 /ton (might not be reliable as figure Googled) , but there are likely to be billions of tons at Trevalour……..could be worth more than the lithium!!
Thanks MO - The information is out there.....just need to mine deeply to find it(pardon the pun)
Can't help doing my own back of fag packet sums to try and get a scale of what CL could be siting on......
Trelavour (hard rock) JORC identified 302,700 tons of LiCarb (LCE) at $15,000/t = $4.5 billion, over 20 years =$220m per annum gross.
For lithium brine CL think each site could produce 1,000 to 1,500t LCE @ $15k/t = $15m per site (lower estimate). In time, there could easily be 10 sites covering 700 sq/km licence area = £150m per year.
Once production at full scale annual gross revenue could be $370m .................Fantasy numbers? .......IPO figures will be very interesting to see if I'm close.
CUSN have a nice slice of this & as you say TIN, COPPER, ZINC, SILVER are the CUSN baggers. Also, don't forget Nickel King in Canada.
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-live.ch.gov.uk/docs/larBZ_eNOQrvhPQmNrBRHNHxcQcpMSwrG0HMZsFtFuE/application-pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=ASIAWRGBDBV3FNK3S2M5%2F20220901%2Feu-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20220901T110928Z&X-Amz-Expires=60&X-Amz-Security-Token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjEOb%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCWV1LXdlc3QtMiJGMEQCIBGymQQ64z5HyfCtwpN8LbyuMQN87AspqXnV6UOVrOGpAiBv%2Bit8tkxStQLh9jwh3uKtUAUICLf7FL3%2FpeC19B9L6yrTBAhvEAQaDDQ0OTIyOTAzMjgyMiIMk1mSvOu52jgED%2FXZKrAEdoXRzAwSR4b8uHQYr6jri%2BvhFbR%2BAthmlaFeDaS%2FmqDC8ykX4mMkD9Uo3s6ge%2BfNr3lYSCcJNeyMi57wdVBugSUMc3HMPJuJwmxz1gmFgRYB5loiPNrXVjB%2Bb7QQ5xW%2BnSyFvTgrFNl%2FvIpg2NDhzGI4vWNsH%2BKA2MuExKi%2FSL2rmr2sDqEqBjvL4AIYQ5B7fM7MttBNsMrnNFXeutwxwG715aMU%2B0pjRGonQBpzCjaNQr2NL%2BNP6yLYKPWSsZwAz3QBt9SgHxtoCRXrXe7FgNxCOpk%2BJBotqK9A9uvMpV2gcfQ9eLjy5CpyLVkq%2BJiTKebOX4Wd0KbP8fCMYAtYsGgeCzZWVIqNJAPJrEAjUV3OWe%2B4O8XGYUBEc0UnPywYP4yWbDrAIV6ajsv5iysCxIIH1ZfrDaWV%2FtqUDAZsOoxGeorZiFsQfbwB6uVN31Vid6R6Cw25gfgEu7mue0Xj5UpvrVzOOep4dxdexSdfaYlDNHYiovkgqRydlZrjyilEqeB0f%2B3wDPyxIPdD3%2FP%2F3PPjz7NpYoTBxkxkvICUiZk99RfHKMWpZYxxyP%2BJmG%2BM8vMLFHP9TNODrx8ZJzU39zFFDcDEdnVBhxT9vSoUsbvK6U7VAY%2BPVXhiomUf0ONSTFIPUXag%2BNo1KO1HWgLh77WpUgg%2FeIdTnzr5P5Q6snhAZq%2FotQGrs%2B7vlIMVnBlKC6aSk5tYynwLSS0OiaA%2FC0HPUN%2BzyrlTYFflS0pFTdYw1ojBmAY6qgHmOMs6w0U1WdS8V4k9tnY2YTtLy%2F%2Fawu64uZXuFLGwc5fteIz1Wtl2Tgq8AkMZ2YZuToO3xbaWkwctA6H%2FOe6ApJm4lbGdZg2XNd9tExPnAEvgw70uYVenJcmFTyscTqtIFPppOc5O4PgqlK8Sg8QUNtDUZeKDAm7KYfxTBJdMsfygscI6aG7%2ByJeEdoDb%2FwZYf2sMfkOFf038%2FUFLHL6e9z26DOk8hn9NNA%3D%3D&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&response-content-disposition=inline%3Bfilename%3D%2210205021_cs01_2021-10-25.pdf%22&X-Amz-Signature=ee0ef0086c73865523a9e3261e7f57925c4ece4f5156034e8e58303a4a97220e
Vii - This link should take you to a 13 page confirmation statement (sc01) dated 25 Oct 2021, which lists all shareholders.
If it doesn't open go to CH page for CL, click "Filing History" link and it should be there.
ATB
Great post MO
Also, consider who the other shareholders of CL are aside from TechMet and founders of CL? All available on Comp House website………Norwegian billionaire, ex deputy governor Bank of England, various mining/private equity heavyweights, etc
Hmmmmmm … I wonder what these guys know? No major flaws in shareholders = no flaws in management. And of course CUSN has a big interest in CL
Big momentum, but very little background noise in media , until IPO hits the airwaves
Agree - next 10 years look rosy
https://cornishlithium.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Corp-Overview-Jul-22.pdf
Fira- I’m not aware of a preferred option, but CL has just undertaken more work on the hard rock project with their scoping study.
Full detail on lithium brine DLE is yet to be released, but expect this to happen in conjunction with IPO.
Attached is useful link on both projects
MO - If CL IPO is as successful as I think it will be, that forecast could be on the low side. CL CEO stated that lithium brine resource is “globally significant”…….Cornwall could be the new Chile! CUSN has a nice slice of the pie.