UK Mineral Exploration Company Cornish Lithium Secures $67 Million in Funding

Cornish Lithium, a UK mineral exploration and development company, has announced a $67 million initial investment from a group of leading institutional investors led by the UK Infrastructure Bank alongside The Energy & Minerals Group (EMG) and TechMet. The company uses innovative and sustainable processes to extract lithium from both geothermal waters and hard rock in the historic mining district of Cornwall, UK.

The funding package is expected to significantly accelerate progress toward the creation of a UK supply of battery grade lithium compounds.

Lithium is crucial to support the scaling up of domestic battery production for electric vehicles and battery energy storage solutions.

This investment also signals a significant boost for UK county of Cornwall, which has a 4,000 year mining heritage.

It will help enable the development as an industrial cluster for lithium extraction in the region.

Once in commercial production, Cornish Lithium aims to build its 70-strong Cornwall-based workforce to over 300.

Through its Trelavour hard rock mine development alone, it is estimated that Cornish Lithium could generate £800 million for the local community.

At Trelavour Downs in Cornwall, Cornish Lithium plans to extract lithium from hard rock in a repurposed china clay pit and produce around 8,000 tonnes per year of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

Jeremy Wrathall, founder and CEO of Cornish Lithium, says: “Cornish Lithium has achieved its objective of defining world-class opportunities for lithium extraction in Cornwall from both lithium-enriched geothermal waters and from hard rock. It was therefore essential to secure funding from institutional investors with the financial muscle to bring our projects into commercial production."

John Flint, CEO of UK Infrastructure Bank, adds: “Our investment in Cornish Lithium perfectly encapsulates a key part of our mission – to drive forward new and emerging markets that the UK will rely on to meet its net zero goals, and which will deliver an enduring and positive impact on local economies."

Cornish Lithium is a UK-based mineral exploration and development company.