Cornish Lithium Ltd said it had bought an exclusive £2.3 million technology licence for bulk metallurgical testing and building a pilot plant for its hard rock lithium project at Trelavour near St Austell, Cornwall.
The money will come from the company’s recent crowdfunding which raised a final total of £5.2 million but will still allow other planned work.
This includes a 26-hole, 4,000-metre, drill programme during January 2021 ahead of a mineral resource statement mid-2021.
LICENCE DETAILS
The 15-year royalty-free licence, which covers the entire St Austell granite region of some 93km2, also includes a two-year option to purchase 100 million shares in Lepidico at an exercise price of A$0.016 per share.
If exercised, this would give Cornish Lithium a stake of 1.9% in Lepidico.
Earlier in the year, Cornish Lithium successfully produced nominal battery-grade lithium hydroxide using Lepidico’s process technologies on lithium mica samples obtained during a maiden hard rock lithium drilling programme within an existing china clay open pit earlier this year.
The licence will allow Cornish Lithium to conduct bulk metallurgical testing and to build a pilot plant using Lepidico’s proprietary L-Max® and LOH-Max® technologies.
It also secures detailed engineering and process plans for the pilot plant constructed by Lepidico in Australia.
This will allow Cornish Lithium to construct of a similar plant in Cornwall which can be optimised for use with zinnwaldite and polylithionite micaceous ores.
The junior miner said that work so far indicated the technology’s potential “to produce battery-grade lithium in Cornwall without the need for further refining, thus offering a complete on-site solution.”
Company founder and chief executive Jeremy Wrathall added that the next phase of the project at Trelavour would soon begin along with studies to advance the company’s lithium in geothermal waters projects across the county.
“In particular, the forthcoming construction of the lithium pilot plant at United Downs, will enable the company to trial direct lithium extraction technology at the United Downs Deep Geothermal Project together with partners Geothermal Engineering Ltd.
“Importantly, Lepidico’s technologies are in keeping with Cornish Lithium’s desire to produce lithium in an environmentally friendly, low carbon manner given their ability to directly leach lithium bearing mica minerals at atmospheric pressure.
“When combined with the fact that the Trelavour project is within an existing china clay open pit, we believe this represents a truly low-impact and environmentally responsible route to commercial production of lithium within the UK.”
Cornish Lithium has been evaluating lithium extraction from a recently operational china clay pit at Trelavour Downs in the St Austell area for the past two years.
Work has included a 41-hole drill programme completed in 2020 and extensive metallurgical testing.
Test results have been “highly encouraging” prompting the company to buy the licence and move towards full-scale pilot testing.
Lepidico is a global lithium exploration and development company with offices in Perth and Toronto. Its 100% owned clean-tech L-Max® and LOH-Max® process technologies extract lithium and recover valuable by-products from less contested lithium-mica and phosphate minerals.