INTERVIEW: Cornish Lithium prepares for end-of-decade startups unfazed by sodium-ion threat

UK developer Cornish Lithium believes its upcoming projects will launch on a solid footing given the growing European cathode material manufacturing base and expected rapid expansion of demand for lithium-ion technology beyond the EV sector, the company's Chief Financial Officer Varshan Gokool told Platts in a recent interview.

He also said that alternative sodium-ion chemistries present a minimal threat to the company's future unless lithium prices exceed $30,000/metric ton, while the supply of sulfur — a major cost-inflation item in the metallurgical industry this year — should stabilize before its projects enter production.

Cornish Lithium is developing two projects in Cornwall in the southwest of England. The first, the Trelavour Lithium Project, will deepen a mothballed china clay (kaolin) pit and upgrade its processing site to treat mica, a less common hard-rock source of lithium than spodumene.

"Our mine starts at 0.25% of lithium in mica ore. We then enrich it to a 2% to 2.5% Li concentrate that goes through a hydrometallurgical facility to produce lithium hydroxide," Gokool said.

The company has been running a demonstration-scale plant for the past year and a half, and the lithium hydroxide produced has had its battery-grade quality confirmed by manufacturers in Germany and South Korea. Cornish Lithium has also produced battery cells in collaboration with the UK Center for Process Innovation.

"We've completed the feasibility study and are about to apply for our final planning permits at the end of this year. It will take us about a year to get them, followed by two years of construction, and we should be producing lithium hydroxide from 2030," Gokool said.

Geothermal project

The company is also advancing a geothermal project that will extract brine to produce lithium sulfate.

For this, it has secured 165,000 acres of mineral rights across Cornwall, which it will use to roll out modular sites, each producing 1,000 to 1,500 mt lithium carbonate equivalent of lithium sulfate per year, and together up to 10,000 mt/year by 2032.

The first site, known as the Cross Lanes Geothermal Project, is fully permitted through to commercial production. Cornish Lithium expects to get the drill rig on site in November and to drill wells by March-April 2027. It then aims to build a direct lithium extraction (DLE) plant during 2028 and be in production by early 2029.

The company does not develop its own DLE technology so it will license an existing one.

"Each brine is different. We've found that an oilfield brine adsorption technology did not work well for Cornish brines; however, ion-exchange technologies do. We'll test our preferred DLE technology in a demonstration plant from March to September 2027," Gokool said.

The geothermal project could remain in operation for at least 20 years, matching the Trelavour project's duration and creating a generation of employment.

Cornish Lithium has budgeted $400/mt for its future purchases of sulfur, which it will convert on-site into sulfuric acid for both projects. "It's trading higher right now at $800-$900/mt, but by 2030 we believe the market will have stabilized," Gokool said.

Solid sulfur prices have already come off from their Middle East conflict-triggered spikes, declining to $810/mt FOB Vancouver by the end of October from $1,100-$1,200/mt peaks during June-August, but they remain above a pre-conflict level of around $480-$510/mt, according to Platts data.

Cornish Lithium also projects future lithium prices at $25,000/mt or $25/kg. In September-October, lithium hydroxide traded on a CIF Europe basis in the $14,500-$20,000/mt range, according to Platts data.

Gokool acknowledged the estimate was somewhat optimistic, especially since more supply is forecast to hit the market between now and 2030. On the other hand, he noted, demand is and will continue to be ratcheting up materially.

"It's no longer just about EVs. It's road and rail haulage, balancing the grid as more renewable generation is installed, and you've got a lot of demand from data centers and industry for energy storage."

UK, EU as most natural choices

Cornish Lithium is now in talks with midstream producers to secure offtakers for its output.

In the UK, LevertonHELM and Tees Valley Lithium are developing domestic lithium refining and processing, and Cornish Lithium has a memorandum of understanding with LevertonHELM, which is keen to secure local feedstock for its facility in Basingstoke.

Chinese battery maker CATL and South Korea's EcoPro are respectively commissioning battery and cathode active material (CAM) plants in Hungary, and Umicore is expanding its CAM capacity in Poland, all of which Cornish Lithium sees as prime opportunities in Europe.

"We are also engaging with South Korea, Japan and the US, but Europe and the UK would be the more obvious regional markets to exploit," Gokool said.

The UK needs about 100,000 mt/year of lithium, and the government, through its Vision 2035: Critical Minerals Strategy announced a year ago, has set a target of 50,000 mt of that to be from domestic ore production, according to Gokool.

"Cornish Lithium's Trelavour and geothermal projects will be able to cover 20,000 mt/year, or 40% of that target. Assuming all the battery plants come in as planned, we can sell everything domestically," he said, although he made a caveat that the company also needs to be competitive.

"Ample supply from Latin America, the lowest-cost lithium producer, candidly, is our biggest challenge," Gokool added. "We are operating in a higher cost environment. Our energy costs are relatively high, and we're in the middle of the global cost curve."

Lower CO2 footprint

Although lithium production is less sensitive to energy prices than aluminum and copper, for Cornish they will make up 20%-25% of the overall cost of production. "We need about 25-30 megawatts of power for Trelavour, with most of it consumed by the ore concentration process in the mills that grind the rock," Gokool explained.

"On the flip side, we've got proximity to market, so shipping costs are much lower. Also, in the UK, we're in a 'tier one' jurisdiction, which gives our buyers a security of supply," he said.

Additionally, the company reckons it could produce lithium with a 50% lower carbon footprint by using renewable energy and recycling heat, and, from its sulfuric acid plant, potentially sulfuric acid, thanks to its exothermic processes.

"The regulations that are coming in with CBAM [the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism] and Made in Europe will give us a competitive edge," Gokool said, indicating there will be potential to replace competitors' high-carbon lithium in the market.

On the subject of potentially disruptive alternative battery technologies, he said that sodium-ion chemistries become competitive when lithium carbonate exceeds $30,000/mt, citing industry estimates.

"You need that price for sodium to be a commercially viable substitute," he said. He added that while sodium-ion technology is developing, its energy density trails behind lithium-ion, requiring several times the volume to store the same amount of energy.

He also noted that Cornish Lithium's projects benefit from having been designated as nationally significant in the UK.

"The status gives us a clearer approval process with a more structured, definitive timeline," Gokool said, adding that demonstrating to investors that the government supports the project also helps attract capital.