Cornish Lithium starts second drilling campaign at Trelavour

London — UK lithium explorer and developer Cornish Lithium has started the second drilling campaign at its Trelavour hard rock lithium project near St Austell.

It said Feb. 12 that drilling had begun on Jan. 24, with the campaign due to contribute to the company's first reportable mineral resource.

The campaign includes eight to 10 weeks of drilling using two drill rigs, with almost 1,500 m of diamond and 2,500 m of reverse circulation drilling planned.

Cornish Lithium CEO and founder Jeremy Wrathall said the detailed drilling program was expected to provide further data regarding the lithium in the hard rock resource that was discovered in 2020, and it would also help to determine how the lithium could ultimately be extracted.

"In December, we announced that we would be accelerating the development of our Trelavour hard rock lithium project following the successful production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide from lithium mica samples obtained during our first drilling program at the project earlier in 2020," Wrathall said. "We are now looking forward to this second drilling campaign and producing our maiden mineral resource from Trelavour.

In December, Cornish Lithium also announced that it had acquired a technology license from Australia's Lepidico for its proprietary L-Max and LOH-Max technologies, which it said was "an innovative and environmentally-responsible metallurgical processing solution for lithium extraction" at the Trelavour project.

It is currently using this technology to progress towards bulk metallurgical testing and the construction of a pilot plant.

Wrathall added that Cornish Lithium was also continuing to advance its project to extract lithium contained within geothermal waters at the United Downs deep geothermal project, also in Cornwall.

He said the company had recently begun work on the UK government-funded pilot lithium extraction plant at the project, which would enable Cornish Lithium to trial a number of direct lithium extraction technologies.

"In addition, we are actively identifying new prospects and potential drill sites, allowing us to significantly increase our understanding of this resource," he said.

Cornish Lithium raised GBP5.2 million ($7.2 million) in crowdfunding in October to help fund its goal of creating a battery metals hub for the UK.