This substantial upgrade follows extensive additional drilling, sampling, testing and modelling over the last twelve months.
Commenting on the announcement, Jamie Airnes, CEO of Cornish Lithium said: “Today’s resource upgrade also provides a strong foundation for our Feasibility Study, which we expect to publish later this year, moving us closer to our Development Consent Order (DCO) application and commercial production. This is one more step in Cornish Lithium’s plan to secure the UK’s critical minerals supply, jobs and industrial future.”
Importantly this represents a maiden declaration of resources in the Measured and Indicated categories – a material increase in the geological confidence of the orebody at the Trelavour Lithium Project.
Highlights:
Updated Resource calculated using drilling data from 18,616 metres (m) of drilling.
- Mineral Resource drilling comprised 56 diamond and 88 reverse circulation holes.
- Over 20,000m of drilling now completed at the Trelavour Lithium Project including exploration and geotechnical drillholes.
Total Mineral Resource: 88.5 million tonnes (Mt) @ 0.21% Li2O equivalent to 183.5 thousand tonnes (kt) of contained Li2O.
- 63.0 Mt in the Measured and Indicated category.
- 25.5 Mt in the Inferred category.
- Equates to 454.5 kt lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), an increase of 50% from the 2022 Resource.
The Mineral Resource extends from surface, meaning a very low strip ratio in what is an existing former china clay pit.
- The updated Resource provides a key element of the Trelavour Lithium Project Feasibility Study, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. Importantly the Trelavour Lithium Project is a fully integrated lithium project which produces lithium hydroxide as a final refined battery grade product with no dependency on overseas refineries.
- Utilises low carbon intensity processing proprietary technology which is now fully owned by Cornish Lithium.
- Will produce 10 000 t of battery grade lithium hydroxide tpy
- Plans to be in commercial production from 2029.