A number of British companies are looking to start mining the critical mineral as geopolitical tensions and protectionism begin to disrupt global supply chains. This was stated in an interview with Argus by Alan Parte, vice president of lithium projects at Imerys British Lithium.
In particular, he emphasized that Europe currently does not produce lithium for batteries, and all countries, including Great Britain and France, compete with China for supplies from Australia and South America. In his opinion, projects such as Imerys British Lithium in Cornwall and Emili in France will play a key role in the energy transition, as well as in ensuring the independence of the UK and Europe from critical minerals.
“For our Imerys British Lithium project in Cornwall, we plan to co-locate the pit, beneficiation and processing plant. This significantly reduces the carbon footprint as we reduce the distance that the raw materials have to travel during the processing stages… For our Emili project in France, we are considering a 90 percent water recycling solution with the possibility of using wastewater from a nearby water treatment plant.”– he said.
Parte said the lithium resources are at least 160 million tonnes, which would allow the company to produce enough lithium carbonate for half a million electric vehicle (EV) batteries a year for more than 30 years at its plant in Cornwall. Emili will produce about 34,000 tons/year of lithium hydroxide, which is enough to produce 700,000 batteries for electric cars per year. Together, these two projects will provide about 10% of Europe's lithium needs.
“The UK Government has been very supportive and we expect this to continue – under the Critical Minerals Strategy. The situation is the same in France – our Emili project complies with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, which requires at least 10% of critical raw materials to be sourced locally and 40% to be recycled on site.”– he added.