Interview with Jeremy Wrathall, Founder & CEO of Cornish Lithium.

A gentle meander through the world of lithium. It's struggling at the moment, but is it the exciting EV commodity that can satiate our future hunger for green energy?

Cornish Lithium is a lithium junior mining company based in Cornwall. No lithium is produced in Europe whatsoever right now, but Wrathall claims we used to be able to “buy it from the supermarket.” This obscurity of supply is something Cornish Lithium is looking to capitalise on.

Wrathall is a mining engineer, trained in Cornwall with a big passion for Cornwall. He has a finance background at Deutsche Bank, but it is laden with mining knowledge. In addition, he is a partial geologist.

Wrathall identifies the main issues in the lithium market right now: namely, the supply chain and its carbon footprint. In the UK, we used to rely on international shipping; there is a big carbon footprint in shipping supply chains and lithium thousands of miles away. Is it responsible joined up mining? People are beginning to think of geothermal (ultra-green) energy, and domestic lithium supply.

However, do people care more about margins than going green? Wrathall points to the CEO/Chairman of Blackrock, the "biggest funding institution in the world," who said in January “We do care about carbon footprint now, because our investors do.” Investors will want to know Cornish Lithium can plug itself in the European battery supply chain, or will there always be companies looking to margin, regardless of green momentum?

Wrathall expects Cornish Lithium to demand a premium but claims the team is aware they need to compete on price. Wrathall claims that low carbon technology means they can still compete and be towards the bottom of the cost curve. Companies like BMW have already said we have to source our material ethically; societal pressure appears to be changing.

A big flaw in the supply chain has been the UK's disposal practices: shipping 70% of its waste to Turkish landfills. This relocation of waste solves nothing.

ESG and Greta Thunberg's impact on international markets last year could mean 2020 is the year of climate action. Investors and producers are carefully considering how they assess supply chains.

How are automotive companies engaging with mining companies to check they are mining ethically, and how can they track this? Wrathall claims the EU is putting €3Bn into the EV supply chain, but states it is national governments' responsibility to spearhead green mining and incentivise it.

Wrathall states the mining industry is responsible for c.10% of emissions globally. He claims a blizzard of change and innovation is coming into a very conservative industry.

The "biggest lithium rock body in the world" is in Cornwall, and it has higher-grade rock than in some of the places in Europe. Wrathall's eventual ambition would be to create a battery powerhouse in Cornwall, but this is incredibly early stage. Is this just wishful thinking? Cornish Lithium has the technology to extract from both hard rock and brine.

Wrathall explains that Brexit has crystalised the UK government's economic thinking, claiming they plan green investment akin to the Manhattan Project.

Cornwall is a socially deprived county, but Wrathall wants to change that. Geothermal power has allowed Cornish Lithium to recently recover lithium (high concentrate spodumene) from the layer of water that lies beneath Cornwall. However, New Zealand, a lithium extraction country, has been at it for 60-years, but they haven’t utilised this technology at full scale yet, just pilot scale.

The lithium market is depressed at the moment because of oversupply from Chinese grade lithium, but this is low-grade, and Cornish Lithium wants to fill the high-grade battery demand gap.

Company page: https://www.cornishlithium.com/

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