RE: Cornish Lithium announcement4 Nov 2021 19:08
Major Oak
Before the IPO and raise of £20m-£25m in Q2 2022, CL expect to have 1. their maiden resource statement published , the results from the UD pilot plant processing 140 tonnes of water, results from the Geocubed deep geothermal project and results from the CLICC project.
At the AGM on 15/10/21, they said re the Maiden resource statement -" Expected in early November 21 "
Looking through my notes re the maiden resources, nothing pops out . Off the top of my head I think it is 10's of millions of tonnes of resource but that may be BL not CL.
- If CL, this is at Trelavour which is the hard rock prospect. Remember that the lithium found by drilling is roughly at the same percentage as in the waste tips, known as the Cornish Alps. That is a huge resource, (probably hundreds of millions of tons) a considerable amount of which is owned by Imerys. Where further lithium arises in hard rock areas outside CL's lithium rights - e.g. in Imerys's mineral rights area, CL I believe, has a a joint venture with Imerys, which may possibly add a lot more potential
After testing and reviewing many systems of extraction , CL have negotiated the exclusive rights to Lepidico's technology, which is going to be used at the Trelavour pilot plant.
If Imerys want to use that technology too, they will have to go to CL. The Lepidico process is a low energy approach, which will fit well with aims to reduce CO2 release into the atmosphere. British Lithium is also in the area and have developed their own technology for separating the Lithium from the Rock. (So possibly Imerys could team up with them .)
Another point to note is that the "Cornish Alps" do not need to be mined, nor does ore need to be brought to the surface, is it just sitting there hundreds of millions of tons as a result of mining the rock for china clay for years.
I think CL plan to process 2.5m tonnes of rock a year at Trelavour. At a 0.4% Lithium content that would give them around 10,000 tonnes of lithium per annum.
CL have 600 sq km of mineral rights on land and now have another 400 square km of offshore rights recently concluded with the Crown Estate. Drilling offshore is expected to take place from onshore locations.
Back on June 15 this year CL were indicating they expected to be commercialising the hard rock project in 3-5 years, and the brine project at UK in about 8 years. That changed. By the AGM on 15/October they did not know which would produce lithium first. Look up and see if they were awarded a govt. grant for a brine pilot plant in that period as it may indicate how/why the change took place.
My understanding is that initially CL expects to produce another 500tonnes a year of Li from brine, but this will ramp up thereafter.
At around $30,000 a tonne, we are looking at CL initially having a revenue of $315m. Given the extraction costs for the "Alps" are negligible there is likely to be a very healthy gross profit margin.
Looks to me as if we may have
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