Proactive Investors - Eight sites in the UK have been earmarked as having the right geology to contain rare minerals such as cobalt and lithium as the country looks to shore up supply.
Sites were identified by government-backed group the British Geological Survey in each UK nation as having the potential to house 18 metals and minerals used in batteries, semiconductors and wind turbines, which are largely sourced from abroad.
“The UK has geological potential for critical minerals but it has been underexplored,” British Geological Survey geologist Eimear Deady said.
“A lot of historic exploration was for major commodities such as copper, lead, zinc and gold, and critical minerals were not considered.”
Though the mapping was the “first comprehensive” research of its kind in the UK, according to Deady, sourcing materials from the sites on a large scale would still take between 10 to 15 years.
Two sites were picked in Scotland and Wales respectively, three in England and one in Northern Ireland, all of which have been mined in the past.
According to the British Geological Survey, cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, graphite and antimony could be found at the sites, potentially creating an internal supply network for the UK’s electric vehicle (EV) sector, which has so far struggled to attract investment.
The UK’s EV sector could grow by 100,000 jobs by 2040, the government estimates, but this depends on the development of battery manufacturing capacity and more importantly “a resilient supply” of the required minerals.
Anglo American PLC and AIM-listed Tungsten West PLC are among the few firms developing new mining projects in the UK, though most critical minerals are imported with more than 1,500 tonnes of lithium alone coming from abroad in 2019.